Chapter One

      Memphis, Khemet, year twenty-three in the Reign of King Khufu, 2566 BCE

      The serpent’s tongue tickled her toes. It glided over her foot without fear, as if daring her to move. Its horns were large enough for her to see them clearly, even in the low morning light. Kiya sucked in a breath. Of the hundreds of men standing in the grain line, the horned viper had chosen her—the one man who was no man at all. It was just her ill fortune. After a full season of labouring undiscovered upon the Great Pyramid of Stone her life was now threatened by a creature the size of a chisel.

      The men in the line near her had not noticed. Not yet. They continued to chatter, folding and unfolding the empty grain sacks they carried, their bare feet shuffling in the sand. They had all gathered—the quarrymen, the masons, the haulers—hundreds upon hundreds of pyramid conscripts, all awaiting their promised allotment of grain. They stood in a single sprawling line that encircled the Great Pyramid like a snare.

      ‘Move on, brother,’ urged a voice behind Kiya, but she pretended not to hear. If she lifted her foot the viper would surely bite her, and she would have to stifle her scream—the scream of a woman.

      She opened her palms to the sky and lifted her eyes heavenward, for no one could lawfully disrupt an act of prayer. Blessed Wadjet, Serpent Goddess, she beseeched in silence, let the viper pass. Still the viper did not move. It was as if the giant pyramid at her side were blocking her plea.

      King Khufu’s House of Eternity was not just a pyramid—it was a mountain splitting the sky. Now almost complete, the giant tomb would be ready to receive King Khufu when his time came. It would conduct the great King to the heavens, where he would secure the safety and abundance of Khemet for all time.

      Or so said the priests.

      The holy men who oversaw the construction of the tomb wore fine linens. They walked with their arms folded across their chests, self-satisfied and proud. But their priestly posture belied an insidious truth: it had been twenty-four full moons since the last flood—two terribly trying years. The Great River was but a stream—no longer navigable by the large imperial barges. Its life-giving waters had ceased to teem with the silvery perch and tilapia that normally filled Khemetian bellies. The riverside plantations of flax, barley and wheat—once green with growth—now stood barren and cracked.

      The people of Khemet, too, were cracking. Their sacred Black Land—named for the colour of the rich, life-giving earth of the Great River’s floodplain—had become brown and lifeless. Every day Khemetians grew thinner and hungrier. The priests assured them that the fate of Khemet would change once the Great Pyramid was complete.

      But the tomb workers, whose food rations grew sparser each day, wondered if Khemet wasn’t instead being punished. As they pulled their stone-laden carts up the dark, twisting inner tunnel they whispered among themselves: What if King Khufu’s ambition has grown too great? What if this tomb displeases the King’s heavenly father, Osiris, God of Death and Rebirth? What if, with the stacking of each stone, we are not exalting the land of Khemet but dooming it to death?

      Kiya always kept her head down in the tunnel—and held her mouth shut. ‘Mute Boy’ she was called among her gang, and her strange infirmity cloaked her with an air of mystery that distracted them from her concealed gender. It was a useful part of her ruse, and necessary. A woman labouring upon the Great Pyramid of Stone was a sin against the King himself. If she were found out she would be punished. Under King Khufu, that punishment would likely be death.

      Now the viper coiled itself more tightly around Kiya’s ankle. She could feel its muscles squeezing her, its tongue gently caressing her skin. It was preparing to bite. When it did, the poison would quickly paralyse her, and death would come on swift feet. She opened her hands and mouthed the words: Wadjet, I beseech you.

      ‘There will be time to pray later,’ insisted the man behind her. ‘Close the gap.’

      He had spoken verily: she had allowed a gap to form in the line ahead of her. She needed to distract him. Impulsively, she pointed her finger eastward, towards the Great River, as if there were some significant sight to observe there. But something was there—or someone, rather. It was a man—a rider. His mounted silhouette made a sharp shadow against the paleness of the dawn.

      ‘Who is that?’ asked the man behind her.

      Kiya shook her head. The rider was unusually large and broad-shouldered, as if he spent his days ploughing fields or hauling stones. He rode a strange hoofed beast whose long legs and thick, luxuriant tail set it apart from a familiar donkey. His flowing dark robes marked him as a Libu, an enemy of Khemet, yet his stature and carriage indicated other origins. He unwrapped his headdress and began waving it in the air above him vigorously, as if in warning. Then his figure dissolved instantly—obscured in the eruption of the Sun God’s light.

      Kiya shielded her eyes and glanced downward. To her surprise, her tiny foe was gone—disappeared, just like the rider. But there was little time to celebrate for she felt the ground beneath her begin to tremble. In the place where the rider had been there was now a cloud of dust. Then they materialised—an army of men, advancing towards the pyramid at great speed.

      ‘Libu!’ someone shouted.

      The men in line scattered, but Kiya could not bring herself to move. There must have been a thousand of them—rugged, robed raiders whose shrill battle cries invaded