The truce between them was over. The battle for who would live and who would die had begun. Suddenly a booming wail like that of a wounded bull elephant erupted from the direction of the Lake of Fire. The Cobra burst from the conflagration with his arms across his face. Flames leaped from his hair and surged up his robes. Piay breathed in the meaty odour of cooking flesh.

  Howling, Tallus tore off his burning robe. His desperate attempt to cross the Lake of Fire had all but destroyed him. Half of his mane had been scorched away, and his skin was blackened and charred. One eye was entirely closed by a red curtain of burned, swollen flesh. His legs trembled, close to buckling, and only force of will kept him erect.

  ‘Seth will not let me die!’ he bellowed, his words ringing off the granite.

  In an instant, the Cobra took in the statue of Osiris and the three holes in the dais and made his calculation. Swinging his arm, he smashed the back of his hand across Myssa’s face. She flew across the stone floor and sprawled there, dazed.

  Piay hesitated, unsure of whether to run to Myssa or try to stop Tallus. Before he could move, the Cobra had leaped forward and rammed his hand into the hole that was at chest height.

  A grin spread across his scorched face. Victory was his.

  Piay felt a queasy despair rush through him. How could he have failed? He had been one step away from claiming Imhotep’s prize.

  ‘For Seth!’ the Cobra roared.

  With a snap of his wrist, he twisted the handle at the base of the hole. A sharp click resounded from the depths. From the stone dais, a deep grinding reverberated.

  Yet no opening appeared.

  The Cobra’s victorious grin faded and his charred face twisted with bafflement. Piay watched his expression turn to worry, and then his eyes widened and he wrenched back and forth with increasingly furious movements.

  The Cobra’s hand would not come free. Whatever had shifted within the dais had locked him fast.

  Spitting curses, Tallus threw himself this way and that. He pressed one foot against the dais and heaved back with all his strength. Still he could not loosen himself. Blood trickled down his forearm, droplets splattering to the flagstones around his feet.

  On the edge of his vision, Piay glimpsed a shadow moving through the now-dying flames of the burning lake.

  The Cobra had been badly burned, but his injuries were as nothing compared to what Akkan had suffered. Smoke curled from his blackened skin; his hair had been burned away, as had his ears, eyelids and most of his nose. The Child-Killer lurched towards the Cobra, who still thrashed in a futile attempt to tear himself free. Blood pooled around his feet now. Gripped with terror, the sorcerer craned his neck back at that vision of death drawing towards him and screamed, throwing himself into even greater wildness, all to no avail.

  To either side, the gods looked on, immortal spectators at a very human contest of life and death.

  Akkan clamped his hands on the Cobra’s neck and squeezed, the fingers digging deep as he slowly crushed the life from his former aide.

  Piay didn’t wait to see more. He sensed Myssa starting to shift behind him. Now he had to make a choice between the two remaining holes.

  He blinked once, twice, trying to force away the encroaching darkness of the venom, and then he had it. Here was Imhotep’s final spiritual test. A worthy man would approach humbly. He would come with head bowed on hands and knees, prostrate before the glory of the gods.

  Myssa was clawing herself up on trembling arms. She was still half-stunned from the Cobra’s assault, but more than that, it was the poison that was stealing her strength.

  Before Myssa could make her move, Piay hurled himself forward and jabbed his hand into the lowest hole. His fingers closed around cold metal and he twisted. He clamped his eyes shut, fearing he would suffer the same fate as Tallus, but this time he felt the stones shift. A slab slid up and cool air drifted out from a dark square behind the dais, just big enough to crawl through.

  As Piay dropped to his belly and slithered into the unknown, he could not resist one final glance.

  Myssa stared at him, her dark eyes moist with despair. Piay felt his heart break when he saw the torment there. She knew that he had consigned her to death.

  Crushed by the terrible emotion he had seen on her face, Piay turned away and dragged himself towards the ultimate revelation that would solve a thousand-year-old-mystery.

  T

  he slab slammed down the instant Piay crawled through the hole, the echo thundering across a space filled with a swimming darkness.

  Piay imagined Myssa on the other side of that cold stone, her life ebbing away as the venom consumed her essence. He felt as if he had been stabbed, but he could not give in to wretchedness. His own life was hanging by a thread, and his only hope of rescuing her was to rescue himself first.

  Staggering to his feet, Piay swayed on shaking legs. The fire in his veins was creeping inexorably towards his heart.

  Through that vast stone door, the Cobra’s howl reverberated as Akkan the Child-Killer dragged the life from him. Piay cared little for the torments he was enduring. Now only one thought burned in his mind.

  He felt around for what he had glimpsed as he crawled through from the Hall of Judgement, and his fingers closed on another of the linen-topped torches. He struck his flint and a flame curled up.

  Light raced across the walls of a granite-encased space that echoed the coffin chamber in the Pyramid of Khufu. ‘As above, so below,’ the leader of the Sons of Apis had said, and those words now seemed so much clearer.

  Piay’s skin prickled at the chill air. He breathed in the lingering ghost of a sweet scent like incense. In awe, he turned the brand to reveal more of the space and as he did his breath caught in his throat.

  On every space along the walls the medu netjer – the gods’ words – were painted in colours as brilliant as the day they were applied a millennium before. Here were the spells that so many had killed to find.

  Whether it was the trace effects of the dust he had inhaled, or the tightening clutch of the viper venom, Piay felt certain he could feel a cold power radiating from those terrifying incantations. They seemed to be whispering in the depths of his head.

  Piay wrenched his attention away before he was lost to them. He thrust the torch higher, and the dark unfurled to reveal a granite sarcophagus like the one in which he had hidden in the Pyramid of Khufu. But this one was still sealed. No adornment marked its smooth surface, no sign at all that it contained any king. Small statues, a goblet and some other ritual objects stood beside it.

  It can only be the tomb of Imhotep himself, lost for an age, Piay thought. The Great Architect had set his plan in motion one thousand years before, and when he died, he had been buried at the very heart of it.

  Piay bowed his head in reverence. He let the gravity of this moment settle on him until the pain from the venom cut even deeper and snapped him out of his reverie. He was growing delirious. His thoughts were drifting as death neared.

  In desperation, Piay hurled himself towards the ritual objects. His fingers closed on the ornately carved golden handle of a knife and, still fearful that there might, even now, be one last enemy to overcome, he slipped it into the waistband of his kilt.

  The darkness around his vision edged closer. Now he felt as though he was peering along a tunnel that seemed to be slowly disappearing. The beat of his heart slowed until it was like the gentle lapping of the water in the shallows of the Nile.

  Waving the torch over his head, Piay glimpsed what he needed most: a doorway on the other side of the chamber that opened on to another passage sloping upwards. The way back to the world of the living. He muttered a prayer to Khonsu, hoping beyond hope that there was still time for him, and staggered on. Soon he caught sight of a shaft of silver moonlight breaking through at the end of the tunnel.

  Piay grasped the lintel of a small doorway in the passage ceiling and heaved himself up into the cool night air. The lush scent of the fertile river valley pushed the last of the reek of burning oil from his nose. Around him, heaps of freshly dug sand and shards of rock tumbled away from the tunnel entrance. Ahead, the Pyramid of Khufu soared up to the stars, limned in ivory by the moon.

  Piay rocked from side to side as his legs threatened to give way. His heartbeat had become a distant whisper.

  Through hazy eyes, Piay saw the Sons of Apis were waiting. The leader bowed his head, and his followers dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads against the sand.

  ‘You have been found worthy,’ the leader said, keeping his head down in deference as he made his way towards Piay. ‘You are the exalted one, predicted by Imhotep.’ He raised a small hide pouch to Piay’s lips. ‘Just one brief draught and the potion of the viper venom will be driven from your body. Here you are reborn into your new life.’

  Piay tasted the sweetness of honey, but behind it lay something bitter, like the skin of a melon. His lips puckered and he felt his throat burning as the liquid slid down. Then, as if a spell had been uttered, the darkness around his vision began to retreat. He could feel that his full strength would take some time to return, but he did not have time to wait for it. For now he saw his opportunity.

  The Sons of Apis regarded him as their master. The antidote to the venom was almost in his grasp. Hope surged through him. It wasn’t too late. He could still save Myssa.

  Piay grabbed the ritual gold dagger from his kilt and levelled it at the leader of the Sons of Apis.

  ‘Give me the potion – now.’

  T

  he Sons of Apis had long wondered what the moment when the Riddle of the Stars was finally solved would be like. But nowhere in their myriad speculations had anyone considered the possibility that the Chosen One might undermine his own achievement and threaten the prize for which he had fought, by trying to rescue one of his vanquished competitors. Nor, for that matter, had they envisaged that the competitor in question would be a woman. So, now the leader of the Sons of Apis was faced with an unforeseen conflict between his sworn loyalty to the Chosen One, whoever that might be, and his first oaths to protect and uphold the testament of the Great Architect.

  Now the leader looked at the desperate young man, standing in front of him with a knife in his hands, and knew at once that there could only ever be one choice: no one could be allowed to threaten the blessings that Imhotep’s spells could bestow on the people of Egypt.

  He stepped towards Piay.

  ‘Do not even think of going back for her.’

  ‘Do not forget – I am the exalted one. You answer to me!’

  The leader sighed.

  The young man was tall and strong, in the very prime of his physical powers, and yet, even now, there was so much that he did not understand.

  ‘I have to go back!’ Piay insisted. ‘I can’t let her die!’

  ‘She is already dead. You are not responsible for her death.’

  ‘No!’ Piay cried, falling to his knees, his head on his chest. This was his moment of supreme victory, yet his despair was crushing. ‘No! It cannot be!’

  ‘You won a contest and shall have the prize. She lost and paid the penalty. You, the Kushite and the Hyksos all agreed to the same terms, in full knowledge of what those terms were, and what consequences they entailed. You proved yourself the worthy winner. Myssa the Kushite was young and strong, but the viper’s venom is stronger.’

  The leader stepped forward, placed a hand under Piay’s chin and lifted it, so that their eyes met.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said, his command a kindly one.

  He withdrew his hand. Piay kept his head up.

  ‘Tell me,’ the leader said, ‘did Lord Taita teach you by means of questions, drawing knowledge out of you, and leading you to your own conclusions?’

  Piay nodded in agreement.

  ‘Very well, then,’ the leader said. ‘I will do the same, and I will begin with this simple enquiry. Do you respect Lord Taita?’

  Piay nodded again, as if that were so obvious that he was surprised even to be asked.

  ‘Because he is your teacher and your master?’ the leader asked.

  Piay nodded once more.

  ‘And what was the task he set you?’

  ‘To solve the Riddle of the Stars . . .’ Piay replied.

  ‘And what would that accomplish?’

  ‘It would bring peace and prosperity to Egypt . . . and perhaps even a communion with the gods.’

  The leader nodded. ‘Indeed . . . So, now I ask you the same question, about another. Did you respect Myssa the Kushite?’

  Piay winced at the past tense. He could not bring himself to use it yet about Myssa. He still bore some desperate, irrational hope of a miracle.

  ‘Of course, I love her—’

  ‘That is not quite the same thing. I want to know whether you respected her right to make her own decisions.’

  ‘Yes . . . She made it very clear to me that this was the one thing that mattered more to her than anything. Including me.’

  ‘Very well. And when she chose, as you chose, to go in search of the Riddle of the Stars, what were the terms that I set out? How many would win, and how many would die?’

  ‘One would win. Two would die.’

  ‘You agreed to those terms?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of your own free will?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she also agree to those terms, of her own free will?’

  The leader waited for an answer, but the word yes seemed to stick in Piay’s throat. He just nodded and gave a murmur of assent.

  ‘Was she not the first to hold out her hand and take the poison?’

  ‘Yes,’ Piay said, angrily. ‘You’re right, I admit it, she knew what she was doing!’

  The leader’s inquisition continued, as calmly as before. ‘And when you first went down to face the tasks that Imhotep had set, what did she say to you?’

  Piay groaned. ‘She said that she did not love me – that love felt like a form of slavery to her, and that I should set my love aside and be her enemy. And then . . . Then we should let the gods decide.’

  The leader knew that answer to be honest, for nothing had happened in the entire Passage of the Gods that the Sons of Apis had not seen and heard. That Piay of Thebes could answer so honestly, even when his answer undermined him, was a point in his favour.

  ‘Tell me,’ the leader asked, ‘was that the first time that she had made it plain that she did not want to be tied to you? That her hopes and ambitions lay elsewhere?’

  Once again, Piay told the truth. ‘No, she kept telling me that it was over between us.’

  ‘Yet you would not listen. You would not believe her. Even when she had told you not to try to help her, you did so, more than once, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I just . . . I couldn’t just stand there and let her lose.’

  The leader remained entirely calm, methodical, like a mathematician working through a logical sequence to solve the problem in front of him.

  ‘But that was exactly what she said you should do,’ he pointed out. ‘Be her enemy, and let the gods decide. You have just said as much, yourself. Yet, from the moment you entered the Passage of the Gods, you were doing neither of those things. You insisted on acting as if you were still a couple, taking every step together . . . even though Myssa had made it plain that she did not want you to do that . . . even though you had earlier sworn to let her make a free choice. Was that showing respect to her?’

  The leader looked at Piay, almost daring him to give any answer but the right one.

  ‘No, it was not.’

  ‘And were you showing respect to your master when you risked the mission with which he had entrusted you, because of your own personal feelings?’

  Piay shook his head.

  ‘And what of Imhotep and the gods? Were you respecting them by trying to bring two people to the end of the journey, rather than one, as they had, for the past thousand years, intended?’

  Again, Piay could not even say No for shame at his impiety.

  Now, the leader allowed a slightly greater degree of animation to enter his voice, just as that mathematician might have become a little more excited as his solution came into view.

  ‘Only at the very last moment did you finally act for yourself alone, and understand that you should humble yourself and go down on your knees,’ he said. ‘Only then did you save yourself . . . and obey the rules of the challenge, the command of your master and the wishes of the one you say you love.’

  ‘I failed her . . .’

  ‘Do not punish yourself.’ The leader placed a hand on Piay’s shoulder. His voice was kind again as he said, ‘You have done something extraordinary. You have succeeded where, for an entire millennium, all other men have failed. And when you did wrong, it was only because you have a good heart. There are many worse faults for a man to have, just as there are many worse things than death . . .’

  The leader saw the puzzled look on Piay’s face and asked, ‘Would you really want to live forever, to see everyone you love die, and never be able to join them in the afterworld? Would you not long for release?’

  The leader could sense the realisation dawning in the young man’s mind.

  ‘Yes, I am speaking from experience,’ he said. ‘When you referred to the Sons of Apis as ghost-warriors, you were not so far from the truth. We have existed as long as we have been needed. Now that you have fulfilled the prophecies of Imhotep, we can be released. Believe me, you have our deepest gratitude for that.’

  ‘But Myssa—’

  ‘Was fated to die, as you were fated to survive. Even if you had rescued her, we would not have let her live. We could never have allowed her to take the secrets of this place away to her own land, and place the gods of Egypt at the service of other men. As you mourn her, console yourself with the thought that Myssa may have lost her family in life, but now she can be with them in death. Is that not a blessing?’

  Piay nodded. ‘Yes . . . If she could be with them again, she would think she was blessed.’