Cleopatra's Secret: Keepers of the LIght

by LYDIA STORM

  “You have all the wealth of Egypt here,” gasped Iris, looking around the tomb in amazement.

  “Let Octavian search in vain for the fabled treasures of the Pharaohs!” said Charmion.

  “But what will we do now?” asked Iris.

  Cleopatra sank into a carved chair, her face pale as ash. “We wait for news of Antony.”

  “Cleopatra,” said Apollodorus gently, “the news is all through the city. Antony’s men deserted him. He could not have survived.”

  For a moment her composure broke. Color flooded her dusky face and her chest contracted in spasms of grief. But she waived her hand as if to brush it all away.

  “We will wait for confirmation,” she said, swallowing hard. But her eyes fell on the gilded golden wall across from her with The Book Of The Dead written in exquisitely carved hieroglyphics and she knew he was gone.

  Apollodorus quietly indicated the lyre, which stood with several other musical instruments in the corner of the tomb. “Play for us, Iris.”

  Iris rose, and picking up the lyre, softly strummed with her expert fingers, its healing vibrations echoing through the vast chamber. She began to sing, her sweet voice carrying them all away from this dark hour, to a land of sun-drenched meadows filled with wildflowers, where lovers played in cool pools scented with lotus blossoms and reclined under shady trees reciting the divine poetry of the Gods.

  In this gentle landscape, Cleopatra allowed her weary soul to dwell for a time, away from thoughts of Antony and a hostile invading army. In this moment, all that was beautiful and good in her land flourished in the voice of Nephthys’s priestess, who understood the horrors and fears of the underworld and could bring a merciful relief of her own for those who sought her solace.

  If only they could stay here forever, inebriated with the gentle voice of the Goddess, wished Cleopatra, she need never receive the news of Antony’s death. Never greet the hateful hour when Roman legions marched through the gate of Alexandria as conquerors.

  But the fine hairs on the back her neck raised as intuition broke through. The image of Octavian’s cold clear eyes flashed into her mind. She could see his pretty face as he narrowed his eyes and turned his gaze towards Alexandria.

  Her blood ran cold. Soon she and Octavian would stand face to face. And the world would change forever.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The little caravan of the princes and princess of Egypt made good time as they journeyed across the desert. Caesarion was correct in his argument that a few peasants would not attract much notice, and so far, they rode without incident. Only one day more and they would reach the coast where swift ships and safety awaited them.

  They were a quiet group. Even little Selene had reverted to her former hush, propped up on the saddle before Chigaru. Her only movement was to turn from time to time to gaze up at Caesarion, as if he somehow had the answers to all the troubling questions stirring in her young mind.

  The sun set over the looming sand dunes, making a forest of shadows in the dips and rises of the desert. The wind, which had been quiet all day, began to pick up from the south, restless and torrid, throwing hot sand in their eyes and clogging their noses and throats with dust. Chigaru pulled a thin linen cloth from his saddlebag and placed it over Selene’s nose and the others followed suit.

  The wind began to gather force, whistling its low eerie whine and whipping their headscarves back, snapping them in the scorching air.

  Akil, shielding his eyes with his hands, gazed out ahead of them. “I don’t like the look of this. We should stop and try to create some shelter.”

  “But we’re so close!” protested Caesarion over the sound of the winds. “If we continue riding, we’ll reach our ships in a few hours.”

  Akil frowned as he squinted through the rain of sand. On the horizon, darkness was already spreading out before them with the threat of nightfall.

  A jagged streak of lightning tore across the sky and the desert crackled with heat. Selene grasped Chigaru’s weathered hand.

  “Don’t be afraid, Princess,” reassured her guard. “It’s only a bit of lightning. It will pass quickly.”

  But her tiny ribcage was paralyzed as all the breath left her body and her eyes opened wide to look up at the electric sky. She squeezed Chigaru’s hand tighter, as if somehow this would help her speak.

  She must tell them!

  Unable to breathe, she kicked at him frantically.

  Her guard stopped his horse. “Caesarion, come help. The child’s in a panic.”

  Caesarion reigned in his stallion and coming to his sister’s side, swung her into his arms and held her like a baby, smoothing back her hair, all the while a feeling of irrational terror striking at his own heart at the sound of the white-hot currents roaring through the heavens.

  Caesarion held Selene so he could look into her frightened face. Her eyes were impossibly large and her cheeks, usually the color of warm honey, had turned pale.

  “Selene, tell me what’s wrong!” He searched her face for an answer to this terrible panic that was infecting him too. “Close your eyes and breathe like you’ve been taught in the temple. Close your eyes!” he commanded.

  The child obeyed. She closed her eyes and willed her chest to unlock, inhaling a scorching breath of hot sand and she began to choke. Caesarion held the thin linen closer over her nose. She inhaled and began to calm down.

  A brilliant fork of lightning, more fantastic in its size than any Caesarion had ever seen, exploded above them, illumining the desert and shaking the ground beneath them.

  Selene screamed. “It’s Set, the Evil One! He’s come for us!” Gripped by hysteria, she buried her face in Caesarian’s chest.

  Unnerved, the men searched the horizon which had grown unnaturally dark in the sandstorm. The gaudy red sunset was replaced by bruise-colored clouds of earth caught up in the wind as the shadows closed in around them.

  “This place is cursed,” exclaimed Caesarion. “We must leave at once!”

  With the screaming princess still in his arms, Caesarion mounted his horse. Like one possessed, he charged into the storm as if all the furies of the Greek’s Hades were upon his heals. The others followed quickly behind and they rode like demons through the lashing winds and streaks of lightning until they saw riders approaching out of the darkness.

  Caesarion turned and caught Akil’s eye.

  Who would ride through this storm tonight?

  As the cloaked riders emerged from the haze of sand, the royal party reined in their horses.

  “There must be a hundred of them,” called out Chigaru through the roar of the winds.

  Caesarion looked behind him from the direction they had come. If these horsemen were not friends, they would never escape. Even on the swiftest horses Lochias Palace could provide, Caesarion and his party were heavy cargo with two children and the bags of gold, and they had been traveling for too many days. The horses were on their last legs.

  Caesarion held his little sister close and the guards closed ranks to flank him on either side.

  As the riders approached, another bolt of lighting lit up the desert. In the flash, Caesarion saw the bright golden hair and merciless cold eyes of his enemy—Octavian.

  The others saw him too. Akil slid from his horse, leaving the dumbstruck Alexander perched by himself.

  As suddenly as the windstorm had begun, the gusts died down and the air went unnaturally dead but for the electricity still crackling in the angry purple sky.

  Octavian’s henchmen flung themselves from their saddles, and in an instant Akil and Chigaru leaped forward with their naked blades poised to defend the royal children.

  Octavian nodded, and before they even had a chance, the Egyptian guards were attacked by three times their number.

  Selene held her breath as she watched her guards fight desperately to save her, but they were outnumbered. She screamed as the short sword of a Roman legionnaire sliced through Akil’s thigh, forcing him to fall helpless to the ground
where another soldier caught him squarely in the back of his neck with his sharp blade. In a moment Akil too was pierced through the belly and sunk to the desert floor in defeat.

  Placing her carefully back on his saddle, Caesarion leaped down from his horse to face the Romans.

  The soldiers swarmed around him. Caesarion fought with all his heart, but four burly legionaries disarmed him, roughly pinning his arms behind his back.

  The young prince stood glaring up at Octavian as the Roman Emperor slid from his horse, a dagger gripped in his hand.

  “So you are the boy your whore of a mother claims is Caesar’s son.” Octavian studied Caesarion with fascinated hatred.

  “I am Caesar’s true son and heir,” spat Caesarion struggling to break free of the soldier’s grasp.

  “Too many Caesars are not a good thing,” replied Octavian, as he raised his dagger to strike at Caesarion’s heart.

  Caesarion closed his eyes, waiting for the blade. Behind his lids, he saw the flash of lightening, and for a split second his father’s face stood out clear and proud, the laurel wreath of a general crowing his short hair.

  Caesarion's hands burned.

  Instinctively, he opened his eyes and held out his palms as a surge of energy shot from his fingertips with some power he did not even know he possessed. He pointed to the blade aimed at his heart.

  Octavian cried out in pain as the dagger fell from his grasp onto the sand. He stared at his fingers is if he’d been bitten, then looked up at Caesarion, fear and hatred sizzling in his pale eyes. “Viper!” He turned to his legionnaires. “Cut him down!”

  But Caesarion raised his hands again. All the power he had suppressed throughout a lifetime surged through him now, and as he waved his palms across the cracking air, a wall of fire burst up between him and the Romans.

  The legionnaires jumped back, some falling to their knees. “It’s true! He is a God!”

  Sweat poured down the prince’s face as he held the scorching wall against his enemies. Turning to the twins, he cried, “Ride away!”

  The children stared at him with wide blank eyes.

  “Go!” He blasted a lick of flame under Alexander’s mount and the horse reared up, then shot like an arrow across the sand.

  Selene’s terrified eyes met Caesarion’s for a flash and then she gathered her reins in her small hands and kicked her horse hard, sending it pounding after her brother.

  The confused guards began to ride after the children, but Octavian called, “We’ll deal with them later! Here is our greatest enemy!”

  The soldiers turned their mounts back. Octavian took a step closer to the wall of fire separating him from Caesarion.

  With a burst of rage, the young pharaoh willed the flames to shoot higher and burn with a blazing intensity that forced Octavian back.

  “Bastard!” cried Octavian. “You cannot hold us forever with your demonic powers!”

  And it was true. Already Caesarion could feel the power draining away, draining him of every ounce of life. He fought to hold the wall of flames, if only for long enough to allow the twins to escape. He was lightheaded and shaking with the effort as he turned back and saw the children’s swift horses disappear over a distant sand dune.

  The power was gone. He dropped his hands and sank into the shifting sand, exhausted to the core.

  Octavian’s shrill voice buzzed from somewhere near. “Kill him!”

  The Jackal God stood over him, silently holding out his hand. His father was waiting in the mists beyond the veil….

  With his last effort, Caesarion reached out and his fingertips brushed the Dark Guide’s hand.

  The lightning smashed through the heavens, ripping the sky apart with jagged, skeletal claws as a legionnaires’ blade slashed Caesarion’s throat and his blood poured a crimson stain upon the earth. His body fall back into the sand and he lay motionless as the flicker of lightening lit up his lifeless face.

  Everyone stood still for a moment as the rumbling black thunderclouds rolled away leaving an unnatural vacuum of silence in the twilight desert.

  Cautiously, Octavian leaned down to examine the fallen prince more closely. The glint of gold caught his eye. He picked up Caesarian’s limp hand and pulled the heavy signet from his finger. Octavian held up the ring in the fading light and recognized the face of his beloved mentor.

  “This belongs to me.”

  Deliberately, Octavian slipped the signet onto his hand. It hung loose on his slender finger but the prize made his heart glow with the triumph of a long held ambition satisfied. He turned to his soldiers. “Now let’s dispatch with the rest of Cleopatra’s brats.”

  His soldiers slung Caesarion’s body across the back of Octavian’s saddle, then mounting his horse, the Emperor and the legionaries charged off in the direction of the escaped prince and princess.

  Selene rode with all her heart just a breath behind her brother. They galloped wildly into the approaching darkness, blindly with no idea where they were headed. Only that they must escape!

  The sliver of a moon was rising above the sand dunes. Fixing her gaze on the crescent, Selene steered her horse in that direction, her twin automatically following her lead.

  Then she heard them, the sound of horses and soldiers calling out, coming up quickly behind her. She kicked her stallion but he could go no faster.

  “They’re coming!” Alexander called in panic.

  Selene clung to her horse, riding, riding but not fast enough as a flood of Roman legionnaires surged around them, one grasping her horse’s reins, forcing her to stop. Her brother was screaming and thrashing as his mount was also secured.

  Octavian, breathing hard from the vigorous chase, rode to her side.

  Selene sat staring in shocked horror as she took in the fallen figure of her older brother slung across Octavian’s saddle, his blood dripping onto the sand, and her body shook in its tiny frame as Octavian reached out his grasping blood-soaked fingers for Alexander.

  She hardly noticed as two more horsemen burst over the sand hill to the west charging towards her. But Octavian paused and looked up, narrowing his eyes.

  As the cloaked riders drew closer his lips went white, all the color draining from his rosy cheeks as the riders came into plain view.

  Octavia, her hair streaming down her back in a golden tangle, scorch marks from the hot whipping wind turning her delicate complexion bright pink slid from her mare with the assistance of a cloaked attendant. Never taking her eyes from Octavian, she marched forward and firmly took hold of little Alexander’s shoulders. Then, still clutching the prince, she moved to Selene and grasped her hand tightly in her own.

  “Octavia…” her brother’s voice was barely a whisper as he gaped at her.

  Then, recovering from his shock enough to speak, he demanded, “What are you doing?”

  His sister faced him squarely. “From this moment on these children are under my protection. I will raise Antony’s son and daughter with their half sister in my villa in Rome.”

  Octavian was momentarily lost for words again. Was this some apparition or desert mirage playing tricks on him? Octavia in Egypt? But as he looked into her eye, he knew this was no trick.

  “You have overstepped your bounds, sister.”

  He moved to grasp the little prince again, but now, swift as lightning, her companion placed the sharp point of a sword at his throat. In his sudden action, the swordsman’s hood fell back to reveal the lean weathered face of Germanicus.

  “If you wish to murder Antony’s children, you must kill us both first,” said Octavia.

  Cool, even with a blade at his throat, Octavian looked at the pair, measuring their resolve. “They are Cleopatra’s children too,” he reminded her.

  “They will cause neither you, nor Rome, any trouble,” Octavia promised. “I will swear it by any Gods you wish.”

  Octavian looked at the two terrified children, both staring at him unnervingly with Antony’s large dark blue eyes, then back at Octavia. �
�And what if I execute the Prince and Princes of Egypt and do not kill you?”

  “In that case you had better kill me,” she replied her face as cold and threatening as his had ever been. “If you think I cannot match wits with you and destroy your power in Rome, you underestimate me. If you murder these innocents, I will know you are beyond redemption, and you give me no choice but to plot your destruction and bring the curses and vengeance of all Rome upon you. By Diana, I swear it!”

  Her eyes flamed frigid like the lightning still blazing through the sky and the tip of Germanicus's sword pressed a little harder against his throat.

  He stood perfectly still for a moment looking at his sister. Octavian, who could run his sword through the two helpless children whimpering at his sister’s side, could not raise a hand against the enemy who gazed at him with his own eyes.

  He looked down at Caesarion’s corpse. “I suppose I have what I wanted. Take the Egyptian brats. But mind I never lay eyes on them in Rome, or I may decide not to be so merciful.”

  Fingering his new gold ring, Octavian backed away from Germanicus’s sword. Mounting his horse, he issued a sharp command to his legionairs and rode off with his men in the direction of Alexandria to claim the prize he had waited for all his life.

  Cleopatra in chains.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Night was falling as Antony rode through the city gates. An uneasy feeling came over him as he beheld Alexandria silent and empty. The chaos which reigned earlier this morning had been replaced by a city which more resembled the somber Valley of the Kings, where the tombs of the ancient pharaohs were housed, than the bustling metropolis he had come to love. The sound of his horse clomping along the wide limestone boulevard echoed eerily against abandoned buildings.