ISBN 978-5-0051-9051-2

      Created with Ridero smart publishing system

      Prologue

      «… If you have the courage, release me», the voice seemed to call him from the tomb, but no one could enter this tomb. It was erected quite recently and in the shortest possible time. But everyone was already afraid to stutter about what was happening there. They did not talk about her, as if she did not exist at all, but she was, and the evil power emanating from her often declared itself.

      «Free me!» the voice sounded more clearly. Right in his head. This voice was like the clink of gold coins falling on the floor of a tomb. Not a voice, but a call from a fairy tale. So the genie calls to let him out of the lamp. The beautiful voice gave off some kind of cunning.

      Piay shuddered. Isn’t that why he got here. To see something unusual. So far he has only heard. He came here at the risk of his life, having miraculously passed the guard post. So it is worth taking the risk further. There is nothing to lose anyway.

      He touched his hand to the inscriptions carved into the wall of the tomb. They did not begin to crumble like dust under his living fingers. Everything that was told turned out to be a lie. The gods did not strike him as soon as he stepped on the cursed land. The fire did not incinerate him on the spot. His body was not rotted away by the plague. These were all just stories. The desert city was not cursed. The new pharaoh ordered to raze him to the ground only in order to eradicate the memory of his insane predecessor?

      More than once Piay wondered: was the ruler Amenhotep really insane? Or is it all about the intricacies of politics? It was impossible to put one god above all, in this case the sun god.

      The sun! Shine! A dazzling flash! The fall! Piay closed his eyes. Everything flashed before my eyes so quickly. He nearly went blind because he saw for a moment. Some kind of eerie deity with wings, all permeated with scorching sunlight.

      «Free me!» the voice, a little tired, became insistent.

      Piay nodded obediently. It was impossible to resist this voice. It called from the bottom of the grave, but it had greater power than all earthly rulers.

      Deposed sun god! Is his power buried here? Piay has repeatedly sculpted his images from stone, but he has never seen anything like what he now dreamed of. There is no such creature among the gods of Egypt. It seems to be really above them.

      He felt dizzy. There must be an entrance somewhere. He did not know this, but it was as if someone whispered to him. One of the smooth stone blocks should move, opening inward like a secret door.

      Piay ran his hands along the smooth walls covered with bas-reliefs in places, and a miracle happened, in one place the wall gave way, with lightning speed, as if the lid had been removed from the casket. Piay looked inside. It wasn’t dark there. Somewhere in the distance, lamps were burning on the sides of the passage. It remained a mystery who lit them here, and how long they burned in the tomb.

      The voice no longer called, but Piay stepped forward anyway. It felt like he was entering a temple. Forbidden temple to a deposed god. This god must be stronger than any other.

      A bird was screaming obsessively behind the wall of the closed passage. It looks like the cry of an eagle. Piay didn’t think it might be a warning. He walked forward. Fate brought him here, he knew it for sure. He felt.

      Inside, everything was different from ordinary tombs. No images of the usual gods. Everything was different here. Inscriptions, columns, drawings. Everything is different than in other pyramids. And also a stone bed in the very center. It stood here instead of the sarcophagus. On it lay something far more precious than the countless treasures heaped up here and there like offerings.

      The enchanted youth walked forward. The light of the moon penetrating the top of the pyramid was enough to see the creature, which was glowing by itself. The lying body seemed to be molded of gold and still alive. It seemed as if it was only sleeping. Cobwebs were already entangling him, but there was no sign of decay. It gave the impression of something more eternal than even a sculpture.

      Piay stopped and held his breath. This is Pharaoh’s daughter. The one about which they talked so much, and about which it was no longer possible to talk about. Her body was not made a mummy, and it did not decompose. It shone brighter than gold.

      «Free me if you have the courage…»

      She said nothing or moved, but he heard a voice that sounded more like the hiss of boiling tar. He looked and began to understand something. Not everything that was said was fiction. The dead golden creature did have wings. They spread over the stone bed under her back like a luxurious halo. And in their frame it seemed that this creature was just sleeping.

      Shadow in the palace of the pharaoh

      Years before

      Everything remains the same, and yet something has changed. Taor felt as if he had come to the Pharaoh’s palace for the first time in his life. They said that everyone who returned here from a distant journey or from the battlefield experiences this. But that was not the point now.

      Unaccustomed luxury dazzled and at the same time struck with some amazing cold. This happens when you cross the threshold of the pyramid, where the deceased lies, over whom the ritual has already been performed, but death is still near, it has not gone anywhere yet. Its presence can be felt, though you can not see.

      He had never experienced this on the battlefield, although there people fell dead at every step, blood shed, lives were cut short. But there was no sense that something dark was standing nearby and waiting. Something is already watching you.

      Taor even glanced over his shoulder. The sensation of being around was so real. He didn’t think about how the other congregation might interpret his gesture. He was never superstitious. There could be rumors about him that he had a head injury. The scar on his temple did indeed remain, although hidden under strands of hair. In one of the battles, an alien saber almost cut his head. A little bit… but what if the gods intervened in the moment.

      And then the first big victory in his life was to deafen him enough to forget how close that blade was to his forehead. And, perhaps, it was worth not remembering the feeling that at that moment someone else intervened between him and the attacker. Someone intangible. The gods could do anything, but what if it wasn’t them.

      When did he think of gods lately? Taor did not want to think about them now. Only scraps of battle, festering wounds, severed limbs, and vultures feasting on the remains of their foes climbed into his head. He did not even know to whom to attribute these enemies: the Hittites, the Nubians… Egypt still did not know the tribe with which he was sent to war. Their attack on the country was sudden and unpredictable. Neither the royal advisers, nor the prophets, nor the priests could even guess where they came from, but they were innumerable and it was as if they were not people at all. Taor remembered chopping them, and they did not feel pain. Each of them was as difficult to kill as in other battles to put a dozen enemies. And after each killed, more and more of them arose. It was as if the desert spawned them. Pharaoh’s troops were desperate, and Taor too. How many they did not kill enemies, but their number did not dry out. The scouts could not determine how many there were and where their camp was. Each time they attacked at dusk, and not at dawn, as it should have been. Taor and his subordinates had to stay awake at night, and with the first rays of dawn, the battlefield became empty. However, at night everything was repeated. Each new detachment advancing on Taor grew in number. These warriors had impenetrable armor, and the skin beneath them was even harder than the cuirass in which they were dressed. He chopped right and left like a butcher, and already knew that he could not win, but overnight everything changed. Enemy units suddenly stopped arriving… and this happened just after someone invisible took