Myssa was not alone. Craning her neck round, she glimpsed Piay slumped against a pillar, his eyes flickering back to life, and beyond him the Cobra, lying flat out on the floor, his breathing ragged.

  The leader of the Sons of Apis stepped forward and Myssa shivered as his gaze fell upon her, weighed her, judged her, before moving on to the others.

  ‘The cult of the Sons of Apis was founded by the Great Architect an age ago to test those who would walk the road to his final reward. The trials would make the unworthy fall by the wayside.’

  The leader’s soft, clear voice seemed to fill the air without the slightest effort.

  ‘You are the first in all that long march across the days to have reached the threshold of the afterlife, and the end of the Great Architect’s quest. You have been tested and you have proved yourself worthy to proceed. Three of you have the strength and the wisdom desired by the Great Architect, and so three of you now must undertake the final trial. That is my verdict.’

  The eyes in the skull face scanned the three people before him.

  ‘But only one of you can seize the power and the riches that must be used to rescue Egypt from the peril it faces. Only one can be victorious.’

  Myssa stiffened. The Sons of Apis intended to pit the three of them against one another, that was clear from the leader’s words.

  Then let this challenge commence, she thought.

  She was not afraid. The dream of taking Imhotep’s reward and using it to rebuild her devastated home, that had started as a spark – the smallest of notions – now consumed her mind and her heart.

  Piay had been right when he suggested that she had not been eating. Somehow, the lotus had seemed like the only nourishment she had needed. The battle to rid it from her body had left her weaker. Her foot had still not healed. Her hunger gnawed at her belly.

  But none of that mattered. Her thoughts were clear, her emotions certain.

  To restore her people, to reverse the events that had scattered them to the four winds and to protect them from the ravages of the slavers – that was worth any battle and any sacrifice. And she still had strength enough to do whatever was required to achieve it.

  ‘Now the only way is forward,’ the leader continued. ‘If you choose not to meet this trial, you will be put to death and you will take Imhotep’s secrets to the grave. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand,’ Myssa said in a clear voice. ‘I am ready. Take me to the trial.’

  On the edge of her vision, she felt Piay jerk his head in her direction, but she did not meet his eyes.

  ‘Very well,’ the leader of the Sons of Apis said. He strode in front of Myssa and commanded, ‘Hold out your hand.’

  Puzzled, she raised her left palm. The cultist swept his own hand across it and Myssa felt a sharp pain. She cried out, recoiling and folding her fingers into a fist. The leader moved on to Piay, who had managed to get to his feet.

  As Piay cursed, Myssa unfolded her fingers and inspected her palm. A thin bloody line stretched across her flesh.

  Once he had finished with the Cobra, the tattooed man stepped back in front of them and raised his palm. Now Myssa could see a thick gold ring on his middle finger, with a small hook upon it. The tip was stained red.

  ‘Now you will die,’ he said, ‘and only one of you will be reborn.’

  Myssa winced. She felt fire burning through her hand.

  ‘What have you done?’ Piay croaked, as if he already knew the answer.

  ‘We are learned in the wisdom of potions and spells, secrets and mysteries even older than the works of the Great Architect.’ The leader lowered his hand. ‘In your veins now flows a poison made from the venom of the horned viper. In the hours to come, it will burn its way through your body and steal your life.’

  ‘This is madness!’ the Cobra boomed.

  Myssa watched Tallus’ face and for the first time saw it twisted with fear. She snorted, pleased.

  ‘The one who is victorious in the Great Architect’s trial will receive an elixir that will cleanse them of the venom,’ the leader continued. ‘As the chosen one, they will be exalted. The Sons of Apis will answer only to them, and under their command we will ensure Imhotep’s vision is delivered.’ He paused, looking from one face to another. ‘The other two will die an agonising death.’

  A clever plan, Myssa thought, as she fought not to give in to cold dread.

  There would be no joining forces, no trying to escape to return for the prize another day. You were victorious or you died.

  Myssa heard a moan and looked round. Piay had sagged forward, his head bowed as if the stones of that temple were crushing down upon his shoulders. He was not afraid for his own life, she knew that. No, his agony came from the realisation that any hope of winning her back had died the instant the venom had entered their blood. They could never be together, even if the stars aligned, even if she ever recalled the strength of feeling he so frequently and fervently described.

  Surely Piay would now, at last, accept that the Sons of Apis had torn them both apart irrevocably. Only one of them could live, and by doing so they would consign the other to death.

  T

  he darkness fell once again upon Piay, and when he awoke he was standing beneath the stars and his head was filled with the cries, the shouts and the whispers of the dead. He heard the men who had died under his command in the fields outside Thebes, his mother, whose face he could no longer see, the farmer he had condemned to die, and the long parade of those who had fallen before his blade.

  In this life, death was never far away. And now his own was closer than it had ever been. But that was not the worst of it. Everything paled beside the devastation that threatened to tear him apart. He cast a sideways glance at Myssa, then snatched his gaze away. He could not bear to look at her. He felt overcome by a feeling of loss greater than anything he had experienced in his life.

  When they had first spoken with Taita, that night after the great battle before the walls of Thebes, Piay had imagined that he and Myssa would work together, hand in hand, their hearts entwined from the start of the quest to its conclusion. Even in the past few days, he had dared to hope that all their troubles would finally be overcome. No longer. Death was coming for one of them, no matter what he did.

  With a languid movement, the leader of the Sons of Apis raised one tattooed arm and pointed. Piay followed the direction of that finger.

  The Sphinx stared back.

  The monument was a poor echo of what it had been in its glory days. Yet even now a majesty burned deep within it, with the stars hanging above it and the moon catching it in stark relief of silver and shadow.

  Piay closed his eyes, letting the dry desert breeze lick his skin. With it floated the scent of the cooling rocks and sand. He pushed himself up. His veins burned with the viper’s venom and his head felt as if it had been stuffed with papyrus, but he shook it free and looked around.

  The Sons of Apis were statues across the moon-washed sands. The wind whipped around them, stirring whorls of dust at their feet. They were so still and unblinking that Piay could not tell if they were praying or in some kind of trance, but they all looked directly towards the Sphinx.

  Only the leader watched Piay. The whites of his eyes stared from shadow-shrouded hollows, shifting as he drank in every detail. For some reason, almost as if someone else had thought of it, Piay remembered his hidden knife. He patted his kilt, just below the belt. The knife was gone, and when he looked up it was sitting in the leader’s open right palm. There would be no unfair advantages in this contest.

  Now the Cobra stepped forward a pace, eyes fixed on the Sphinx. Tremors rippled through the muscles of his face. He knew his potions, and was aware that the poison was draining his life by degrees. Through his own misery, Piay felt a pang of cruel pleasure that a man who had used his potions to cause so much pain now suffered in the same way.

  The leader of the Sons of Apis pointed past the Sphinx to the horizon.

  ‘The sun dies in the west each night. The west is where the afterlife lies. The east is where the sun rises. That is the home of birth and renewal. On this line that divides the two, you will decide which of those fates lies ahead for you.’

  Piay glanced towards the monument. The Sphinx was staring directly towards the east, at the point where the sun rose.

  ‘One final test,’ the leader continued. ‘One final test to decide.’

  Tallus’ black robe seemed to swallow all the moonlight. He shoved aside his terror and said in a commanding voice, ‘I am ready.’

  Myssa’s face hardened with determination. Piay felt a deep warmth at the strength he saw there, and then another wave of grief. If he was to save Egypt, Myssa must die. If he sacrificed himself for the woman he loved, he would doom his entire nation. There was no good choice.

  Piay shook himself. He could not afford to be paralysed. Pushing aside his emotions, he prayed to Khonsu that he would be guided on the right path. He must not weaken, not now.

  ‘Follow me.’

  The leader of the Sons of Apis strode away, past his statue-like followers, to a place where the ground had been disturbed. Sand and rocks were heaped around a freshly dug hole.

  Piay walked to the edge and peered in. A square stone had been revealed. The moonlight picked out an engraving of the Eye of Horus. He shook his head at the irony of it. There really had been a treasure hidden in these sands, after all.

  ‘Beneath that door lies the Passage to the Gods,’ the leader said. ‘You must pass through it to reach your destination, the Temple of Birth and Renewal, which lies beneath the paws of the Sphinx.’

  Piay looked across the stretch of ground to the monument. It wouldn’t be too far to go. But, even so, his thoughts flew back to the shaft near Khem, the chamber and water-duct beneath it, and the terrors they had contained.

  ‘As above, so below,’ the leader intoned.

  Two of his followers slipped hooked rods of bronze into slots on either side of the doorway and heaved the slab off its resting place. A blast of dank air rolled out of the black space that had been revealed.

  ‘You are already dead,’ the Cobra said to Piay and Myssa. ‘Seth beats in my heart. His fire burns in my limbs. He whispers in my head. He will give me the strength I need to be victorious. You test yourself against a god, and that is a battle a mere mortal can never win. When Imhotep’s legacy is revealed, I will be the one who summons Seth to earth. A new age will dawn, the Age of Seth, and the Hyksos will rule all before them.’

  The Cobra paused to draw breath.

  ‘Well,’ Piay said, ‘if you happen to see your god, I have a word of advice.’

  The Cobra looked at Piay in surprise, plainly unsure whether he was being serious.

  ‘Talk less,’ Piay added. ‘Seth strikes me as the kind that’s easily bored.’

  For an instant, he wondered whether an expression of something perilously close to amusement had flickered across the face of the leader of the Sons of Apis, but then he reached out an arm towards the dark shaft.

  ‘This quest is also a rite, and the wisdom of Imhotep will only be revealed when the ritual is complete. Every step you have taken has been through death, and towards death, but now you must learn that death always walks behind you. See here.’

  He swept his hand behind him and Piay turned to see what he was pointing towards. Far away, on the edge of the canal where moonlight shimmered across the black water, a shadowy figure stood motionless.

  ‘Who is that?’ Myssa breathed.

  For a reason he couldn’t explain, Piay felt a cold dread build deep in his stomach. As if obeying a silent summons, the figure began to walk towards them, the steps slow and steady.

  As the figure neared, the moon picked out the features and Piay saw that it was Akkan.

  The Child-Killer walked with stiff movements, torso rigid, arms hanging by his sides, and as he neared, Piay choked at the reek of rot caught on the breeze.

  Akkan’s face was corpse white, the skin mottled with decomposition, and though he stared ahead, he did not seem to see. Now Piay understood what the cult leader had meant the night when he had taken the Child-Killer captive: ‘There are worse things than death.’

  Akkan was dead, yet somehow also still alive. The Sons of Apis were masters of secret, ancient knowledge, and with their potions and incantations they had captured the Child-Killer on the very threshold, still caught in the grip of mortal suffering, with no promise of the joy of the afterlife. This was to be his eternal punishment.

  The leader of the Sons of Apis held out his hand.

  ‘Behold Death in Life.’

  Step by step, the dreaded Hyksos captain advanced, relentless, merciless.

  ‘Do not slow down,’ the leader said with a cold smile. ‘As in life, you must stay one step ahead of death. The Child-Killer will keep coming, and if you falter he will claim you.’

  Piay spun back to the door in the sand. Only a short drop led to the bottom of the hole, where he could just make out flagstones in the thin light.

  Grasping the edge of the doorway, Piay lowered himself into the dark.

  T

  he passage was lined in granite, as smooth and clean as the day the stone was laid a thousand years before. Piay felt dank, chill air swamp him, rushing into his nose and his throat, and he shivered: water lay somewhere ahead. In the shaft of moonlight that fell through the doorway above him, he looked around. The way was wide enough for five people to walk shoulder to shoulder, and sloped gently downwards away from the doorway in the direction of the Sphinx. Ahead, the impenetrable dark swam.

  First Myssa, then the Cobra dropped into the passage.

  ‘Take one step closer to me and I will claw out your eyes,’ Myssa hissed at the sorcerer.

  ‘Victory lies only with Seth.’

  As Tallus swept off into the dark, Myssa turned to Piay and said, ‘You should know the truth about me . . . about us.’

  Piay shook his head. ‘This is not the time—’

  ‘It is the time!’ Myssa’s eyes flashed. ‘Now, on the brink of death, for your sake, you must be clear-headed and accept the truth. All the things that have happened to me have changed me . . . forever! I am not the woman you knew. I do not love you. I cannot remember what that love felt like. To me, it seems like another form of captivity. If I am to be truly free, I have to be free of you, too.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. I walked in your shadow. Perhaps out of adoration, I don’t know. But I will never be a slave again.’

  Myssa reached out and touched Piay’s arm, a hint of warmth after the harshness of her words.

  ‘If we once were friends, now we must be enemies,’ Myssa said, and her voice was soft – kind, even – as she pleaded with him. ‘Think only of love and you will doom yourself. If you want to die, so be it, but don’t delude yourself that some good will come from it. Be strong. Fight hard, and let the gods decide who will be victorious. That is now the only way.’

  Without waiting for a reply, she turned and loped away into the dark.

  Her foot’s still bothering her, Piay thought, seeing her uneven gait. He despaired at what she had said, but she was right – this was not the time to give in to emotion. Only a clear head would help him now.

  Pushing aside his feelings, Piay turned his mind, as calmly as he could manage, to the poison coursing through him and the thing that had been Akkan at his back. His immediate instinct was to rush on like the Cobra, to reach the life-giving potion first, but if the shaft at Khem had shown anything, it was that all kinds of perils could lie ahead in the dark.

  Was that what the Sons of Apis hoped? Fear of death made men reckless, and rash actions would not be the sign of the wisdom Imhotep required.

  Piay edged into the dark, trailing his fingers along the wall for guidance. After a few steps, he glanced back and wished he hadn’t.

  In the shaft of moonlight plunging through the entrance to the tunnel, a figure dropped down, just a shadow against the pale illumination. Akkan stepped forward, his footsteps echoing at their backs.

  The dark swallowed them.

  With each step, Piay felt ahead. His blood thumped in his temple; one misstep could reveal a yawning abyss.

  Echoes: Myssa’s footsteps, and the Cobra’s, all of them creeping away from death towards death. Behind him, the thump of Akkan’s feet never ceased.

  Piay’s nostrils flared as the atmosphere grew suddenly more musty. An instant later he splashed into water. Daggers of cold stabbed into his shin bones.

  To his right, Myssa cried out in shock. She, too, had entered the water. He strained, but he could hear no sound from the Cobra. That threat was coiled up somewhere else, away in the dark.

  Piay gulped in chill air, adjusting to the discovery. He eased one foot forward and realised the passage floor continued to slope down into the water.

  A rasp of breath whispered out behind him. That was the Cobra, waiting, no doubt, for Piay to risk his own life investigating what lay ahead.

  This was the first of the final challenges that led to the ultimate judgement of Osiris. The dead had to prove to the gods that their hearts were good, that they were not weighed down by spite or fear, pride, greed or hatred. Imhotep must have fashioned this last stage of his great puzzle to echo the same judgement. Only a good person could pass through these last few doors to win the Great Architect’s ultimate reward.

  Piay prayed that he was both wise and good. If he was not, only death awaited.

  Determined, he waded into the water. He shuddered as the numbing cold crawled up to his thighs, his waist and finally his chest. He waded forward a step further and gave a gasp of pain and surprise as he bumped into a wall of smooth granite.

  Piay slipped his hands back and forth across the chilly surface, his fingertips stubbing against first one side wall, then the other. The entire passage was blocked. There was no way forward.