Donnchadh waited while he tried to dry himself and got dressed. They both got in the boat and rowed across to Avalon, where they made their way up the winding track to the top. The stone entry was enclosed in a small temple built of rock. A thick door barred entry into the temple. When Gwalcmai tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge. However, the thatch top of the temple had long ago fallen in, so he was able to climb up the eight-foot wall and go over, jumping down inside. He unbarred the door, letting Donnchadh in.
The space was small, less than four meters square. The entry stone was centered. Donnchadh placed her medallion against it in the appropriate spot, and the stone slid down, then to the side, allowing them access to the stairs below. Gwalcmai drew his sword and entered first. Donnchadh unsheathed her dagger and followed, closing the entrance behind them. The Airlia glow lines still provided illumination after all these years and they went down into the bowels of Avalon. When they entered the crystal cavern, both paused as they saw Excalibur, inside its sheath, encased in the stone.
“So, they got it out of Egypt and brought it here,” Donnchadh said.
“Yes, we did.”
Both spun about as a young man holding a bow, arrow notched and string pulled back, edged into the cave. “Who are you?”
Donnchadh carefully reached for the medallion around her neck and held it out. “I am of the Wedjat.”
“Just because you have that,” the young man said, “does not mean you are a Watcher.
“I am of the order,” Donnchadh said in the Airlia tongue.
A frown crossed the young man’s face. “That is the old tongue. I have learned a little. But not enough to talk or understand what you just said.” Still, he did not lessen the tension on the bow. “That also does not mean you are of the order. You could be a Guide or One Who Waits.”
“My name is Donnchadh. This is Gwalcmai.”
The young man took a step back. “I have read of those names. Many, many years ago a man and a woman came here and they bore those names. Are you descended from them?”
“Yes,” Donnchadh said. “We are not Guides or Ones Who Wait. If we were, you would be dead already. We have traveled far to be here.”
Slowly he lowered the bow. “I am Dag-Brynn, Watcher of Avalon.”
“Greetings, Dag-Brynn, Watcher of Avalon,” Donnchadh said as she extended her hand.
“From where do you come?” Dag-Brynn asked as he shook her hand. “Where do you watch?”
“We are journeyers,” Donnchadh said. “We travel from Watcher to Watcher.”
“I have never heard of that,” Dag-Brynn said. “But there is much I do not know.”
“What of the Airlia?” Donnchadh asked.
Dag-Brynn shrugged. “As far as I know, they sleep still.”
“And in Egypt?” Donnchadh pressed.
“They are dead.”
“Some were killed long ago,” Donnchadh said, “but the rest went into the deep sleep.”
“And Vampyr killed them while they slept,” Dag-Brynn said. “The report from the Watcher of Giza concerning this came here many, many years ago.”
“Vampyr? One of the Undead?” Donnchadh was surprised at this turn of events. She vaguely remembered that name.
“So it was written.”
“Who rules in Egypt?” Gwalcmai asked.
“The Pharaohs still rule. It is a mighty kingdom and has conquered many of its neighbors.”
“The Grail?” Donnchadh asked.
“As far as the Watcher of Giza knows and last reported,” Dag-Brynn said, “it is still inside the Ark, hidden in the Hall of Records, deep along the Roads of Rostau. But it was well before my time since we have last heard from Giza.”
He said the words as if reciting something he had memorized, but it appeared he had little idea what the words meant. Gwalcmai coughed, wrapping his muscular arms tight aroundhis upper body. “I hate this chill. Let us do what we need and get going.”
“Let us see the records,” Donnchadh said, pointing toward the entrance to the room where all reports were stored.
Donnchadh learned little more from reading the scrolls. The Watchers still existed, but the reports came to Avalon infrequently. The last from Giza was over two hundred years old. The last from China, from the Qian-Ling Watcher, had come to Avalon five hundred years previously. It told of strange creatures populating the area — spawn of the Undead. Donnchadh assumed one of those they had freed from underneath Giza must have made his way there— or else the Airlia in the mountain had produced them. Since then, nothing. Some of the Watchers had not reported in for millennia. That might be because the line had failed in places, or because there was no way to get the messages across the oceans. Some of the reports were in languages she didn’t recognize.
After reading what she could, Donnchadh sat still for several hours while Gwalcmai went hunting with Dag-Brynn. By the time they returned with a stag, she had made her decisions. They butchered the stag, preparing some of it for immediate consumption, and Gwalcmai cured the rest for the journey he anticipated they would make. He asked no questions, for which Donnchadh was grateful.
As she began to read again, though, his cough grew worse. Dag-Brynn built up the fire in the small room, the smoke going up through a crack in the ceiling, but Gwalcmai could not warm up. When she put her hand on his forehead, she could feel the heat. She had Dag-Brynn gather all the blankets he had and she wrapped her partner in them. But the fever grew worse.
“I should have built the boat,” Gwalcmai said. “Time is the only thing we have plenty of.”
“Yes, you should have,” Donnchadh agreed. “That was my mistake.”
Gwalcmai shook so hard that Dag-Brynn had to help her hold him on the small cot next to the fire. When the shivering subsided, Gwalcmai’s face was bathed in sweat. His eyes were slightly unfocused.
“We should go back to the ship,” Donnchadh whispered to him. “I can cure you there.”
Gwalcmai laughed, the sound more a rasp coming through his tortured throat. “I can’t make it. If the fever breaks, then yes. We go. But—” He tried to get up, but his muscles had no energy. He collapsed back on the cot, soaked in sweat. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Donnchadh said. She wrapped her arms around her partner. Across the chamber, Dag-Brynn was watching.
“I could help you take him wherever you need to go. To your ship.”
Donnchadh sadly shook her head. “No. It’s all right.”
Dag-Brynn came over and looked down. “The village across the way. Many died twenty years ago. Something killed them all. They had the chill and the fever. I had to send my family away. Many miles away. My wife and daughter died.”
Donnchadh had assumed her partner had caught a cold from swimming in the water, but now she had to wonder— had someone poisoned the lake? But what could last in the water that long? During the Revolution, the Airlia had not hesitated to use biological weapons against the humans. Millions had died as a result.
It didn’t matter. She could not take Dag-Brynn to the Fynbar . And in this condition she could not get Gwalcmaithere on her own. The trip would surely kill him. His only chance was to ride this out here.
She sat next to Gwalcmai for hours. Sometime in the middle of the night he began raving in their native tongue, causing Dag-Brynn to cast some curious glances their way. Donnchadh put cold compresses on her partner’s forehead, trying to keep the temperature down. She tried to rehydrate him with a broth using the deer and springwater.
None of it worked.
Just before dawn, Gwalcmai sat bolt upright and called out their son’s name. Then he slumped back, the life fading from his eyes.
Donnchadh reached up and carefully closed her husband’s eyelids. She bowed her head for several moments, then reached inside his tunic and removed his ka.
“I am very sorry.” Dag-Brynn was standing just behind her.
“Will you help me bury him?”
“Of course. Where?”
“On the top of the tor,” Donnchadh said. “His spirit can help guard this place.”
They were at sea for four days before Gwalcmai finally asked their destination.
“Giza.”
Gwalcmai nodded. “I expected as much.” The trading ship they were on was hugging the coast of Europe, moving around it toward the Mediterranean. He was quiet for a few minutes, then asked: “And when we get there?”
“I have been thinking,” Donnchadh said. Since traveling back to their ship and implanting Gwalcmai’s memories and personality in the ka into the body in stasis, she had been considering their next move. Since Gwalcmai had no memories of the most recent trip to Avalon, and she had been the one to read the scrolls, she had taken full responsibility for planning their next actions. Which, of course, was pretty much the norm for them since they had been together.
Gwalcmai waited quietly, something he was not good at. His unusual silence grated on her. They normally regenerated at the same time. She found that there was a certain indefinable distance between them ever since leaving the ship. Her current body was young, only the equivalent of late twenties, but Gwalcmai appeared to have just passed the threshold into manhood.
“Things here are not the same as they were on our world,” she finally said. “We have made the situation different. The Great Civil War has made everything very different.”
Gwalcmai barely nodded, indicating his agreement.
“Both sides sleep,” Donnchadh continued, “and have their minions skirmishing. The key for the Master Guardian is under our control. Their headquarters on this planet at Atlantis is gone. Their communications array on Mars is destroyed and they are out of contact with their empire. All these are things we had to do at great cost early in our war against the Airlia on our planet.”
Gwalcmai nodded once more. “We took out the communications array first. That cost us many good God-killers. And it was only the first stage of the war.”
Donnchadh stayed quiet, staring over the wooden railing at the shoreline passing by.
“So.” Gwalcmai finally spoke. “You are saying the war has progressed far already, even though these humans are not even close to being able to challenge the Airlia with their technology.”
“Yes.”
Gwalcmai rubbed the stubble of beard on his chin. “It is still too soon.”
“Not if—” Donnchadh began, but then fell silent.
“Not if what?”
She pulled out the scepter they had brought with them to the planet so many years ago. “Not if we procure the Grail and use it. Create an army of immortals.”
Gwalcmai did not immediately object, which she found interesting. But after several minutes of mulling it over, he shook his head. “It still would not work. We do not have the weaponry to challenge the Airlia. We may make an army of immortals, but all it will bring about is great suffering for those transformed. They will die and come back to life constantly. A terrible fate. And the immortality has conditions — we learned how to kill the Airlia and I am certain they will know how to kill our immortals.” Gwalcmai paused. “But — I do think it would be wise for us to try to get the Grail under our control, as we have had Excalibur removed from Giza. It will prevent the Airlia from using it on their minions.”
“That is what I have been thinking.”
“And that is all,” Gwalcmai said, “under our control.”
“All right.”
Gwalcmai smiled. “Why do I not believe you?”
Slavery among humans. Humans owning other humans like property. It was a concept strange to Donnchadh and Gwalcmai. Their planet had been under the thrall of the Airlia for so long that the concept of humans “owning” other humans had never even arisen. But Egypt had changed since last they visited. The Great Pyramid still sat atop the Giza Plateau, but the sides were rough and worn from the weather. There were two more large pyramids flanking it, obviously attempts by other Pharaohs to match the splendor that Khufu had built. The Black Sphinx was hidden out of sight,the depression it sat in covered and camouflaged as part of the plateau itself, and there was a stone replica squatting on top.
The physical changes were great, but what truly struck both Donnchadh and Gwalcmai was the sprawling camp of slaves to the south of the Giza Plateau. There were thousands living there, under the thrall of guards and forced to do all the hard labor, from making bricks to the fine craftsmanship needed to finish the numerous temples and palaces being built. The camp was surrounded by a mud-brick wall six feet high with guard towers spaced every hundred meters. The wall seemed more a symbolic barrier than an actual one, as the people held inside seemed broken by their situation.
The slaves were not Egyptians. They were a mixture of races, predominant among them a conquered tribe called Judeans. They came from a land to the north and east, along the shores of the Mediterranean. They had been defeated by the Egyptians in battle and brought here in chains to do hard labor.
Donnchadh and Gwalcmai found the Watcher of Giza in the same small stone hut in which all his predecessors had also lived. He was a middle-aged man who, while he knew his role, had not sent in a single report to Avalon in all his years at the post. He was frightened by their appearance and fell on his knees when Donnchadh showed him the golden medallion, begging her not to slay him. Realizing he would be of little aid, the two made their own forays onto Giza and the nearby towns, learning as much as they could.
The Roads of Rostau were still guarded by the golden spider, but no high priests walked the tunnels. No one seemed to even know the Roads existed anymore, other than the Watcher, who had never ventured down there and almost considered them as much a myth as the Airlia themselves. Donnchadh and Gwalcmai knew they could get to the Hallof Records and use the scepter to gain access to the Ark with the Grail inside, but getting out was going to be a different story. Given the reaction to the Swarm craft, she had little doubt that opening the Hall of Records would cause some sort of alert. The Pharaoh’s soldiers and priests blanketed the entire plateau, primarily to keep the large slave population under control. Short of flying the Fynbar in, Donnchadh doubted they could get away with the Ark and Grail.
So they decided to use the same tactics they had used against the Airlia: division and dissension. They learned that the ruling Pharaoh, Ramses II, had two sons, the elder of which, Moses, had been exiled from the kingdom for attempting to lead a coup against his father. He had been sent to an outlying province, Midian, where he had been appointed governor. There was a younger son, given his father’s name, Ramses III, who obviously was in line to succeed.
Donnchadh and Gwalcmai traveled to Midian, which lay to the east of Egypt, on the desolate peninsula known as Sinai. They found the governor’s palace to be more of a large home, built of mud bricks, huddled on the inside wall of the capital city’s ten-foot-high walls. Midian wasn’t much of a city, consisting of barely a thousand people, and the province had little in the way of resources, other than some mines. A fitting punishment for a wayward son, but one that caused Moses’ resentment of his father to fester, as they learned while they spent several days in the city, listening and watching.
Donnchadh and her partner were able to gain an audience with Moses with relative ease, using a few gold pieces to bribe the captain of his guards. They found the governor sitting on a dilapidated throne on the roof of his house, staring out over the wall into the desert. Two bored guards barely checked the two of them, only taking the most obvious precaution of removing Gwalcmai’s sword before allowing themaccess to Moses. Donnchadh still had the scepter and her dagger tucked in the belt under her robe.
“This is far from Giza,” Donnchadh said in lieu of greeting the governor.
Moses turned his head toward them. “I was told your names but they mean nothing to me.” He did not bother to stand and greet them. He was a young man, with thick dark hair and an angular face. There was the slight trace of a horizontal scar on his forehead.
“Our names are
not important,” Donnchadh said.
“Does the woman speak for both of you?” Moses asked.
Gwalcmai nodded. “She does.”
“Strange,” Moses commented. “What do you want?” he demanded, staring at Donnchadh.
“We want to help you.”
“You bribed the captain of my guards with gold to gain this audience,” Moses said. “How much more gold do you have?”
“How much gold does the Pharaoh have in his treasuries?” Donnchadh asked in turn.
“That gold is in Giza, and as you noted, Giza is far from here. And in more than just distance. If I cross the Red Sea, my father will kill me.”
“Not if he needs you,” Donnchadh said.
Moses took a long drink from a cracked ceramic mug before he spoke again. “And why will he need me?”
“To help with the problem of the slaves.”
“And what problem is that?”
“We’ll get to that,” Donnchadh said.
Moses drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne for several moments while his other hand tipped the mug and he stared sadly into the empty interior. “And why do you want me to return to Egypt?” he finally asked.
“To finish what you started,” Donnchadh said. “To lead a revolt.”
“The army is loyal to my father. And the priests also. I have no—”
“Not through the army or the priests,” Donnchadh interrupted. “You will use the slaves. The Judeans.”
Moses frowned. “You just said my father will welcome me back to deal with the problem of the slaves. I am aware of no problem. And then you say I will use the slaves to revolt against my father.”
“You will do both.”
Moses mulled this for several seconds, then a sly smile crossed his face. “Very interesting. And ingenious.” He lifted his free hand and traced the scar on his forehead. “You know, my father gave this to me when I was but a child. He beat me many times. I was born from one of his mistresses and should not have been allowed to live, but she hid me, then went to the high priest. Because my father had no other heir at the time, he was forced to acknowledge me. But once his third wife gave him a legitimate son, he no longer needed me.”
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