‘Now I can see why Taita wants all the old monuments restored,’ he said. ‘Who could lay eyes on a place like this and not feel the glory of Egypt?’

  He looked at Shamshi. ‘Isn’t that right, Hyksos?’

  The priest shrugged. ‘Lord Taita has not seen the royal palace in Avaris.’

  ‘Yet the king who once lived there sought the wisdom that lies hidden here, because Avaris could not provide it,’ Myssa pointed out.

  Piay smiled. ‘Well said, my love.’ Then he turned back to Shamshi again. ‘So, are you ready to tell us what you know?’

  ‘Soon. When the time is ripe.’

  ‘Playing for time won’t get you anywhere. Before we leave this place, you will either be dead or free, depending on what comes out of your mouth.’

  ‘I am aware of what is at stake,’ Shamshi said. ‘Soon you will see the true value of bringing me along on your quest.’

  ‘I’d better – for your sake.’

  Piay led Myssa to one side, and spoke quietly, so that Shamshi could not hear him.

  ‘This place is huge. We can’t possibly search it all. So where do we even begin?’

  ‘We try to think as Imhotep would have done. To understand him as a man, to know his mind. I’ve been thinking hard about that ever since Taita first spoke to me about, well . . .’ She looked around. ‘All this.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It seems to me that Imhotep was very much like Taita. His thoughts were like quicksilver, his knowledge immense. But he had a sense of humour and he understood the way people think. One of his teachings was that we see but do not really see. We miss what is right before our eyes. So . . . the secret Imhotep has hidden was reserved for Egypt’s darkest hour. Not hidden for all time. He made it very difficult to uncover, because it had to be found by the right person. But still, he wanted that person, whoever they might be, to find it.’

  ‘So, you’re saying that the clues can be seen, if someone knows how to see them?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  ‘And do you know how?’

  ‘I only know that we’re looking for a sign that others might pass by and not give a second thought.’

  Piay sighed. ‘A sign that no one knows is a sign . . . Now I get why they call this a riddle.’

  ‘Except that I’m sure Imhotep made the sign something obvious, once one sees what it means.’

  Piay craned his neck up. ‘Like the pyramid? That’s obvious, all right.’

  Myssa shook her head. ‘Too obvious. No – the first sign is elsewhere. But I’ll know it when I see it. I’m sure of that.’

  They returned to the others and walked on, their footsteps ringing off the walls. All conversation ebbed away. Piay felt dwarfed by the weight of ages among the stones, too insignificant even to utter a word. The only voice was that of Myssa as she noted the buildings they passed from the descriptions the scribes had given her.

  ‘The House of the South . . . The South Tomb . . . The Heb Seb Court . . . The Serdab . . . The House of the North . . . The Mortuary Temple . . .’

  And then, when Piay was starting to fear that they would never see the damned sign and their entire expedition had been a waste of time, Myssa suddenly gasped. Her face lit up and she spun on her heel, hurrying back the way they had come. The others raced after her.

  Finally she came to a halt.

  ‘There,’ she said, pointing.

  Piay looked in the direction she was indicating and saw a temple, just one among many other buildings laid out to Imhotep’s sophisticated plan. He shook his head, frustrated.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  Like a teacher patiently explaining to a slow pupil, Myssa said, ‘Every building here has some ornamentation, some carving to beautify, to dazzle the eye and take the breath away. Except that one. It stands alone.’

  Piay felt as if the sun was rising and he could see everything as clearly as Myssa.

  ‘She’s right,’ Hannu said. ‘I’ve not seen anything like that temple. It’s plain, simple – you wouldn’t look twice.’

  ‘Then let’s investigate it,’ Piay said.

  He glanced back at Shamshi. The barbarian’s grin had gone; his eyes were narrow.

  At the entrance to the temple, Gatas struck a flint to light the torch they had brought with them for just such an occasion. Once the flames licked up the brush, Piay grasped the brand and stepped inside. The dark rushed away from the circle of light and Piay gasped at what was revealed.

  The inside of the temple was the exact opposite of that plain exterior. It was filled with opulent design and intricate carvings. The light licked up a series of gently curving pillars decorated with bands of different colours separated by narrow hoops of gold, as beautiful as the day they were first constructed. The style of the pillars was called djed, the gods’ word for stability, and also for the spine of the god Osiris.

  Piay could feel elements of the puzzle starting to come together at last. This place of divine inspiration hidden away behind an unimposing surface: a secret hidden in plain sight.

  Myssa pushed past him towards something she had glimpsed half-hidden in the shadows and he followed, holding the sizzling torch high. On the facing wall was a carving of a half-opened door, so realistic it looked like an actual doorway.

  ‘The door to the afterlife?’ Myssa mused. ‘Why would Imhotep have had this sign carved here if it had no meaning?’

  Piay turned back to Shamshi. ‘If you have something to say, now is the time.’

  The barbarian stared at that half-opened door and a smile crept across his face.

  ‘Let the Eye show you the way,’ he said. ‘Let the Eye light the way.’

  Piay shook his head, unsure if Shamshi was merely saying something – anything – to save his own neck, or if this was some crumb of information he had picked up from one of his masters. Myssa pulled the linen package from the pouch on her hip and unwrapped it, holding the Eye of Horus up. The torchlight danced across the polished quartz and Myssa frowned as she saw it. With a slow movement, she turned the Eye back and forth, letting the glimmering of the illumination play across its surface.

  She took a step forward and held the Eye in front of the carving of the door.

  ‘Bring the torch closer,’ she said, beckoning.

  She positioned the Eye of Horus the span of a hand from the stone of the carving, then took Piay’s wrist with her other hand and moved the torch so the light shifted. As if from nowhere, a blast of light surged from the Eye, brighter than any beacon, as bright as the sun itself, and everyone there gasped.

  Something in the nature of that translucent quartz had magnified the flickering amber glow beyond all reason. The intense light sprayed across the surface of the stone, picking out the tiniest flaw.

  How can this be? Piay wondered. Is it magic? Imhotep’s skill was far, far beyond even the greatest craftsman of contemporary Egypt.

  Myssa was gripped by the sight, too, and as she peered closer, her eyes widened.

  ‘What is it?’ Piay breathed.

  ‘See here. And here.’ Myssa traced a finger across the surface of the limestone.

  Piay leaned in. Tracings of what looked like fire burned across the surface of the door: engravings that would have been invisible to the naked eye, so delicate as to have been put there by a master craftsman who knew how to keep the edges sharp for an age. They were coated with some substance that made them blaze to life when the brilliance of the Eye of Horus shone upon them.

  Piay felt a shiver along his spine. Here was the signature of Imhotep, the Great Architect, a man who had lived one thousand years ago and now walked with the gods.

  ‘We’ve been blessed,’ Myssa said. ‘If we had come here in the daylight we’d never have discovered this.’

  ‘Then I have another prayer of thanks to make to Khonsu, for the night is his domain,’ Piay replied.

  ‘Let me see what it reveals,’ Myssa whispered, seemingly as awed by the discovery as Piay was.

  As she moved closer, Piay placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her and looked round.

  ‘Take him away,’ he said to Gatas. ‘This is not for his eyes.’

  Gatas prodded Shamshi with his sword and the two men disappeared into the dark, the echoes of their footsteps dying away as they passed through the entrance and into the night.

  When they were alone, Myssa continued her search of the engraving on the stone.

  ‘I see the Eye of Horus here,’ she said, tracing her finger around the outline of the hieroglyph. ‘So we have not found it by chance. This is the First Door – the clue that leads to the second, and then on, and on to the very end of the puzzle. And then here, beneath it . . . Oh!’

  Piay sensed the excitement in her voice. She had found something – the location of the next clue, the Second Door, perhaps.

  ‘Look,’ she continued, pointing at the engraving. ‘Just here, it’s—’

  But her words were interrupted by a sudden thud and the sound of something rolling across the flagstones towards him. Piay glanced down as an object came to a halt by his feet.

  It was a human head.

  Piay looked down at it and saw Gatas staring back. The soldier’s mouth was open in a gasp of surprise. And the flames from the torch were dancing in his dead eyes.

  H

  annu whipped out his sword as he spun around to face the direction from which the head had come. Holding the torch high, Piay drew his own blade, too, as he turned.

  Across the temple hall, figures were emerging from the dark. At first around ten men were visible, then fifteen, then yet more. They came quietly, steadily, unafraid. Piay looked along the line as they emerged into the light. They were all Hyksos, black-bearded and coal-eyed, and most of them were dressed in the leather breastplates and caps of warriors. Swords hung loosely in their hands.

  A few wore robes of grey and brown and their frames were slighter, their muscles not hardened by battle. All of them were streaked with the dirt of the road, looking as if they had spent an age in the wilderness. They had hacked off Gatas’ head, and no doubt done the same to the fellow barbarian who had betrayed them, but Shamshi was no great loss. All they wanted was here: the Eye of Horus and the revelation of the path that would lead to Imhotep’s secret.

  Just beyond the light, they came to a halt, staring at their prey. Two at the centre of the line stepped aside. More footsteps echoed from the dark. Piay realised he had stopped breathing.

  A figure stepped forward, taller than the others. At first Piay couldn’t make sense of the shape that was presenting itself to him – more than a man somehow – and then he realised that the new arrival was walking with a staff that was as tall as he was. The staff was slim, smooth, as black as night, but the top of it flashed in the torchlight. Piay squinted and realised he was seeing a crescent moon made of what appeared to be silver.

  And then the tall man passed through the line of barbarians and came to a halt. His weathered face was framed by a mass of black hair and a wild beard, all streaked with grey. Beside his commanding height, his threatening air was charged by those fierce eyes glowering under low brows. The robe he was wearing was of the deepest black, so that for most of his journey towards the light, it seemed as if his head was floating, an eerie echo of poor Captain Gatas’ current state.

  The tall man glanced at the warriors nearest to him and said, ‘Take their swords.’

  Faced by such overwhelming odds, Piay and Hannu had no option but to hand over the weapons. But all was not yet lost.

  Just don’t search me, Piay thought, as if the words in his head could somehow command the enemies all around him.

  He was in luck. The newcomer waved the warriors back, so that he could take their place directly in front of Piay, Myssa and Hannu.

  ‘I am Tallus, though some call me the Cobra.’ His voice had the sound of pebbles falling on stone, thick with the accent of the wild lands to the east.

  Piay flinched, remembering the stories that Khin and Shamshi had told. Tallus was the sorcerer that had made the bargain with Seth: the power of the god in return for the sacrifice of a beloved son. Without Tallus, Akkan the Child-Killer would never have existed: neither the man as he now was, nor the myth that surrounded him.

  And if Tallus is here, can Akkan be far behind? Piay asked himself.

  ‘You stand now on the threshold of ancient times,’ the Cobra said. ‘A door has been opened. A path has been lit, one that leads to a prize that will change the fate of this land.’

  Piay forced himself to look away from that piercing stare. His eyes ranged across the line of Hyksos, trying to work out some way of getting past them. But none came to mind. He and his companions were trapped, at the moment of their greatest triumph. There was nothing that could save them. One word from Tallus and they would be cut down in an instant.

  Piay flashed a glance towards Hannu and could see from the dour expression that his friend would far rather have gone out in a frenzy of bloody slashing and stabbing, right now, than surrender and then wait to be executed.

  Then Piay’s gaze was drawn to Myssa. She had her head held proudly and her chin was tilted up in an expression of pride and defiance. Even to the last, she would not be beaten down.

  The Cobra, too, turned his attention to her. He took a couple of steps and stood directly in front of Myssa. Then he reached out a hand, palm upwards.

  ‘The Eye of Horus. Give it to me now.’

  Myssa backed away a step, her eyes flaring once more. She slipped the Eye behind her back.

  Piay stiffened. Tallus would not be patient for long. And what good could he, Myssa or Hannu do if the Eye was in the hands of their enemy and they were all dead?

  ‘Give it to them,’ he murmured.

  Myssa flashed him a look, her face hard.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ Piay said, praying that Myssa could understand his reasons for conceding defeat, for now.

  Myssa looked at him again. He gave her a little nod, and then, very reluctantly, she brought the Eye of Horus back and laid it on Tallus’ hand. The sorcerer folded his fingers around it, his lips creeping into a victorious smile. When he saw that expression, Piay felt his anger surge and wished he still had a sword to ram through the Cobra’s chest.

  ‘Soon the treasure of the ages will be in our hands,’ Tallus hissed, the faint sibilance in his voice echoing the sound of his namesake. He rapped the heel of his staff on the flagstones three times. ‘You have opened the way for us. Now your time in this world is done.’

  Piay heard more footsteps approaching from the entrance and he knew that the rapping of the staff had been a signal. Only one person could be approaching.

  Piay could just perceive the outline of a shadowy figure, darker than the surrounding gloom, and felt a queasy twist in the pit of his stomach. The silhouette was unfamiliar, but the gait was not. He knew that walk. Then the leader stepped into the light and Piay reeled; what his senses had been telling him was true.

  He cursed himself for his stupidity. There were so many clues, why didn’t I see it sooner?

  The man Piay had known as Shamshi stood beside the Cobra, as the renegade priest intoned, ‘Here is the one who will usher you over the threshold into the afterlife. Akkan, the true brother of Seth.’

  Gone were the grins, the cheery charm, the endless love of bargaining that had amused them all. This seemed like a different man entirely. He appeared to have somehow grown in stature, and with his shoulders pulled back and his broad chest, he conveyed an overpowering sense of sheer physical menace.

  I should have known from the eyes, Piay told himself.

  But now that Akkan had revealed himself, those same eyes were even more disturbing, for they told of a man who had done terrible things, witnessed untold suffering and communed with the most terrifying of all gods . . . and not once felt a flicker of pity or compassion.

  Piay ground his teeth together. The demon had been in their grasp, right from the start. They had sheltered him and guided him to the thing he desired most, and in doing so, had brought about their own destruction. But there might still be one thing they could do.

  Piay caught Hannu’s eye. He then moved his eyes in two different directions, first up and then to one side. Hannu responded by lowering his head, as if in despair, but giving an extra little nod on the way down.

  They understood each other. Now it was just a matter of timing.

  ‘T

  he woman is the only one that matters.’ Akkan’s voice rolled out through the dark of the temple. He no more sounded like Shamshi than he looked like him. His voice was low and resonant, like the echoes of a stone thrown into a deep pit. So little remained of the man who had been beside them as they sailed out of Thebes that Piay wondered if it were possible for two souls to reside in one body.

  The flaming light of the torch twisted the shadows on the faces of the intruders. The Hyksos commander’s men closed around Piay, Myssa and Hannu, with swords levelled, and the Cobra stepped forward, the end of his staff rattling on the flagstones.

  Flames flickered in his dark eyes. He came to a halt in front of Myssa. Her eyes flashed with defiance. Unmoved, Tallus looked her up and down.

  ‘You are certain?’

  ‘She has the wits here,’ Akkan replied. ‘The knowledge that can unlock the riddle. These other two are of no use whatever.’ He glanced to his right, at the men standing there. ‘Kill them both.’

  ‘No!’ Myssa flung herself between Piay and Hannu and the approaching warriors and spread out her arms to bar the way. ‘If you kill them, I will not help you.’

  Akkan raised a hand. ‘Hold.’

  His men came to a halt. Their leader’s brow twitched as he scrutinised Myssa. He seemed to be peering through the skin and bone and deep into her head.

  ‘We could make you help us,’ he said.

  ‘I have no fear of pain, nor death,’ Myssa replied.

  ‘You have no power here. You have already opened the way. We can travel on ourselves from this point, if needs be.’

  ‘You think Imhotep would have made this riddle so easy? Every step of the path will require wisdom, humility, knowledge. Things you do not have.’