Even now, the boy worried more about Renifer than himself. He wanted her to come too.
She shook her head. “Go, and go swiftly,” she said, giving him a gentle push in the right direction.
Coming out of the west, borne on a high wind, was a cloud of sand. It stood up vertically, like an approaching god. The boy and girl walked toward it, while the girl of ivory called farewell, waving, and repeating her accented version of Renifer’s name.
How powerful were the gods. Sekhmet had answered every one of Renifer’s prayers: Hetepheres’ tomb would not be robbed twice, the queen was avenged and Pankh had suffered.
The terror and joy of dying for Pharaoh disappeared. Renifer was astonished and glad to be alive.
She followed the path back down, arriving at the bottom exactly when the soldiers did. They froze at the sight of her.
Renifer extended her long slender arms and stood under the blazing sun, all gold and white, all shimmer and ghost. She sang the chants of the dead, her soprano rising and shivering, curling around the tops of temples as she walked. She flung her head back and addressed the sky and the hidden stars. She called upon Hetepheres to be with her, and Sekhmet to avenge her. She called upon jackals and queens, upon crocodiles and princesses.
Long before she finished her song, the tourists had scurried back to the temples and the guards had fled to the safety of their headquarters. Tomb robbers they would fight. Ghosts and kas would be left to their own devices.
Renifer lowered her arms. They trembled from the weight of the gold.
The tall thin windstorm spread and deepened, until it sailed like a ship over the desert. It flung sand over the half-carved Sphinx, hiding an entire paw. It flung sand over tourists too foolish to shelter in a mausoleum. It smothered the pots of flowers and put out the fires of incense.
Renifer ignored the sand. It would wrap her forever or let her go. She walked on, accepting the will of her gods.
STRAT
Strat had known they would not die in the tomb of Hetepheres, because when it was uncovered in 1899, it contained no bones. But out here, in the vicious true desert, the one that reached all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, here they could die. No one would know, either. Not in Khufu’s time, not in Strat’s and not in Annie’s.
The footing was terrible.
From a great distance, he had been able to make out tiny paths twisting up those towering cliffs, probably followed by wild goats and greedy robbers. Up close, there were a hundred possible ledges or routes, and no way to tell which actually went somewhere. But in his heart, Strat knew that nothing out here went somewhere. They were headed toward nothing. No town, no oasis, no road, no water.
The sandstorm was no longer a single column. It now covered an entire width of desert. Like a blustery sheet of sand or a hurricane all in a row, its hope was to fill lungs, blind eyes, deafen ears, bury bones.
They came to a bluff, and had to scramble up it, but their feet sank. They circled it, tripping and stumbling on rocks and rubble. They plunged once more into sand; sand; sand. The wind hurled sand into Annie’s eyes, and she cried out, and clung to Strat, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. “It will kill us,” she shouted. “We have to go back!”
But they had nothing to go back to. When Strat turned, even the Pyramid of Pharaoh had been obliterated. “Tuck your face beneath my shirt, Annie,” he ordered her, “and we will grip each other tightly and hope not to be torn apart by the strength of the wind.”
They would be buried where they stood. For a moment he bowed his head over Annie’s grit-filled black hair and accepted his defeat. But only for a moment. “No!” he shouted. “I will not be beaten again!”
Strat recognized this shred of his father in him: the refusal to admit defeat. Well, then he had one good thing from Hiram Stratton, Sr., and he would take it.
“Annie,” he commanded, “step through Time.”
The pain in his heart was so fierce he could not tell whether it was dying of sorrow or of sand. “You go first, Annie. I cannot live a second time in fear that I abandoned you or that you suffered without me. Go. Quickly.”
But just as Renifer had refused to leave her tomb, so Annie refused to leave hers. “No, Strat. I love you. Now when Time has finally brought us together, you think I’m leaving? Forget it! Whatever happens, it will happen to both of us.”
“Annie, all that can happen to us is death. We have no water, we have no transportation, you don’t even have shoes. We cannot live here, only die here. We must cross through Time again.”
“But Time won’t let us go together and I want to be together. When this storm ends, we’ll steal a camel,” said Annie. “We’ll be our own little wagon train to Morocco. Then we’ll build a boat and row across the Atlantic to New York. Although there won’t be much around in Manhattan, forty-five hundred years ago.” She giggled.
“Stop playing games,” said Strat, although this was why he adored her. She could always laugh. Perhaps it was her century; a time when girls seemed to have so much more than the girls in his time. “Anyway, there are no camels in ancient Egypt. If you want to steal a camel, you have to come to 1899 with me.”
He expected to hear one of her peculiar words, from the vocabulary of her amazing decade: Okay or Deal.
But Annie’s hair swirled across his face in a black cloud, her eyes opened wide, and screaming, she filtered away from him. It was as quick as the death of Pankh. She was in his arms and then his arms were empty.
Strat tried to follow her, stumbling through the sand, falling over rocks, tumbling off the cliff they had so desperately climbed. He felt himself surrounded by all the troops of Pharaoh, reaching and grasping, and then in the sand, he was alone again, retching and gasping. He eluded them, neither dying nor living, just staggering on, calling her name.
Annie.
And eventually, he was defeated. Sand filled his shirt and hair, his shoes and the hem of his trousers. His determination not to be beaten had been beaten.
Many things were stronger than one man’s heart.
VII
The Sands of Time
RENIFER
She walked along the edge of the straight-sided canal, wakened a sleeping sailor and ordered him to take her to Memphis. The sandstorm tore his sails and he had to row. Memphis was closed up tight, every shutter and door sealed against the storm. She walked alone through her city.
Sand piled up against the mud-brick walls that enclosed every garden and home. Sand ripped the leaves from the sycamores and tore down the nests of birds. When she reached her own door, she knocked for a long time before the doorkeeper let her in.
Her father, Pen-Meru, was standing in the garden, mournfully surveying the damage from the sandstorm.
Up on the roof, no sand had fallen. On its pedestal still stood the gold statue of Sekhmet. “Greetings, Father, from the ka of Hetepheres,” said Renifer.
He whirled.
He saw her, goddess and ka, cloaked in gold. He who had buried her fell to his knees.
She found it quite pleasing to stand above him. “The queen sent me home. The queen requires you, Father, to treat me as her daughter, instead of your own.”
Pen-Meru beat his forehead against the dirt and she let this go on for some time. “Enough. The queen requires you to cease stealing. She has, after all, an empty tomb in which to store your living body, should you disobey.”
“I obey,” whispered Pen-Meru.
Renifer walked into the women’s rooms. She would worry about Pharaoh another day. Today she would see her mother, take a hot bath, throw the dreadful gold into a pile by the bed. And maybe she would spend it one day, and maybe she would not. And maybe she would marry one day, and maybe not.
She would not worry. The gods held her in the palm of their hands.
STRAT
He was buried only up to his ankles, and he shook that sand away, and was aware of raw skin, burning eyes and the terrific heat that rose up to slap him now that the wind had
passed. Beyond him stood three Pyramids. One Sphinx. A dozen tents.
Eternity, however desirable, was not here.
Strat was a prisoner of Time. His own.
There was no sign of Annie Lockwood. Instead, he was facing the same group he had left, thousands of years, or only an hour, ago. There stood the girl reporter, his father’s hireling, Miss Matthews. How tall she was, her straight spine so unusual. Most females had terrible posture, being desperate to stand lower than their men. The only other girl he knew who was proud of her backbone was Annie herself.
I will never wed, thought Strat. I will never say vows of perpetual love. I will never look for a girl to equal Annie. For there is none.
Dr. Lightner said in an odd voice, “Strat. How can you be holding that gold sandal?”
Strat brushed sand from his eyebrows and hair and tried to focus on the world in which he was about to be beaten once more. I’ve just convicted myself, he thought ruefully, staring down at the gold in his hand. I would rather have her lock of hair. This gold sandal is not Annie. And if I learned one thing in the sands of Time, it is that gold has no value. Only decency toward others is to be valued.
“I myself opened the tomb,” said Dr. Lightner. “There was but one sandal, Strat, and I hold that in my hand. Where did you find that other one?”
Strat was aware of his father’s bulk on his left. The shifting confused figures of the other members of the dig on his right. The flapping of tents and the whisk of brooms, the smack of shovels. There had been a sandstorm. The crew was digging them out.
How could I have let go of Annie, he thought, sunk in misery, and kept my grip on a worthless piece of metal? “It was lying in the rubble,” said Strat finally, “up in the hills.”
Water was brought, and Strat drank gratefully. Sweet cool water. Now that was treasure.
People spoke of the damage from the sandstorm and of its wondrous works, flinging up from its hidden depths the very partner of the sandal Dr. Lightner had found in a tomb. Strat could not quite hear. The winds of Time spun through his ears and thoughts and made him deaf.
He became aware that his father was speaking, almost courteously. His father seemed to be apologizing. Strat stared at his parent.
“I have judged you wrongly,” said Hiram Stratton, Sr. “You are not a thief.”
Around them, in this necropolis, more generations of fathers and sons were on display than anywhere on earth. Here had a thousand generations loved and hated. And what was Strat’s destiny? To love or to hate?
“I wish you to come home with me,” said Hiram Stratton, Sr., “and be my son.”
“You said that once before, Father,” said Strat softly. “When you snatched me from school and put me in an insane asylum.”
“I was wrong,” said his father.
Neither Strat nor any other person had ever heard those words from the mouth of Hiram Stratton, Sr. Strat was touched beyond measure that his father would make such an effort, such an admission. Could it be? he thought. Could my father and I be at peace? Could that be the gift of Time?
Not Annie, but my father? My family? Those I want so badly to love and cannot?
CAMINA
Camilla Matthews was looking at Hiram Stratton, Sr. She was looking at evil.
Good people, because they are good, want to believe in good. She saw Strat wanting to believe that his father was good. Leaning into the hope that his father cared for him after all. Would welcome him home. Would love him.
How the world was driven by love. This was a desperate love; a son’s love.
Hiram Stratton was gloating, revenge within his reach. Camilla understood because she, too, was a friend of revenge. This was a man who excelled at cheating and pretending and convincing all around him to believe his untruths.
Camilla said softly, “Strat, there is a place for you in the British war. Go south. Vanish again. Use a different name. Carry on in a different life.” She took his hand and turned him and gave him a slight shove toward the south.
Far away, as if somebody at that very moment were painting her on a gold background, Camilla could almost make out a shadowy girl in a white gown. “Go, Strat,” said Camilla softly and insistently. “Go, and I will give you time.”
Strat stared into Camilla’s eyes. “You were sent by Time?”
“Go,” she said, and he went.
Hiram Stratton, Sr., opened his huge maw to bellow after his son.
Camilla caught the sleeve of the man’s jacket. He weighed far more than she, but she was taller and her touch startled him, and he paused.
“It is not your son, at this moment, who matters, Mr. Stratton.”
The great man looked at her with annoyance and shook himself loose.
“I am the daughter of Michael Mateusz, whose death you gladly caused when you burned your factory. I stand here, Hiram Stratton, to accuse you of murder.”
STRAT
Strat ran after Annie. “We’ll go to the Sudan!” he shouted over the sand. “The British are having a wonderful war! I’ll get another camera. We’ll sell your gold sandal and have enough to live on for a while. We’ll sail up the Nile and catch the army and I’ll be a famous photographer! Annie! Wait!”
He struggled on and on in the sand. He could not seem to reach her. He told himself he would catch up. “We’ll get married,” he said. “It would be unseemly to travel together otherwise. I know that I am but nineteen, Annie, and I have no means of properly supporting you. But I have faith in my wits and my abilities!”
He was exhausted. His voice did not carry the way he wanted it to. He was not getting closer to her. “Be my wife, Annie! We shall find a missionary on the banks of the Nile! Or in South Africa! Or on board some fine ship!”
He and Annie would repeat their vows in the presence of God and this company, whoever the company might be. Strat was not picky. He had known the worst of companies. Annie was always eager for adventure. She was no shrinking violet, like the girls in his time.
But like a violet, Annie shrank. He could see her and he could not.
His voice—or perhaps it was hers—cried out, “It isn’t fair!”
He lunged forward, sure he could take her hand. But Annie whirled like some dervish of ancient Egypt, spinning and diminishing and vanishing. No! thought Strat. We’re going to honeymoon in a far land and make a home as homes are meant to be: children and hope and joy and love.
He could see the Nile in the distance, a dark and shining ribbon, like the ribbons of Annie’s hair, and he ran on and on, sure he could reach them both.
ANNIE
“No!” screamed Annie Lockwood. “It isn’t fair! I came all the way through Time for you, Strat, and you—”
Her voice had no sound and her lungs no air. She wanted to beat her fists upon the chest of Time. This isn’t fair! You brought me all this way! I deserve Strat!
How many times had Annie or her classmates shouted that? It isn’t fair! In nursery school, when other kids got pushed on the swings and your turn never came. In third grade, when other kids got to sit next to their best friend, but you had to sit with a creep. In sixth, when other kids got to go to Disneyland for vacation, but you just grilled hotdogs in the backyard. In ninth grade, when you paid some attention to the world, and found that some citizens were treated a lot better than other citizens.
It isn’t fair!
But by then, enough things had not been fair that you could shrug. Life isn’t fair, you said to one another. But this is me, thought Annie. I should be an exception.
Time, like all the great powers, like gravity or velocity, continued on. It did not acknowledge what happened inside or outside its span. Annie fell, hair in her face, all sweat and tangles, desperate for a drink of water. The thirst of the desert had taken all moisture out of her. She could not open her eyes in the tremendous glare.
Slowly the rushing shriek of wind and Time left her ears. She tried to listen to the sounds around her, to separate speech from noise, but she w
as too battered by Time and loss. She tried to see where she was, but the immensity of sun blinded her, and she could make out only stones and mirages of water and palm. She wavered in her heart, as if she were nothing but heat on sand, a figment, impossible to catch up to, impossible to be.
It didn’t really matter where or when Annie was, because she was not quite where or when. She was among but had not arrived.
She knew that Egypt did not care. Egypt had seen too much. From Alexander the Great consulting the oracle out in the western sands to the invasion by Napoleon. From Antony romancing Cleopatra on the deck of a Roman ship to the canal at Suez. From the ancient scribe who chiseled a decree of Ptolemy V on a slab of black basalt to Champollion who translated the Rosetta Stone, two thousand years later.
I don’t care one little twitch about history! thought Annie. I want Strat. It isn’t fair.
She had never felt quite so American or quite so spoiled brat, but she did not want to set an example. At last she stood up and stumbled over stones and steps toward a drinking fountain. The water was cold and refreshing and she drank as if she had not had a sip of water in a thousand years. She felt as if she had not showered in a thousand years either. She tottered back to the seat she had left.
I love you. I want to marry you. We’ll have children and joy and hope and love.
Had she said that? Or had Strat? Or were the words a dream?
I love you. I want to marry you. We’ll have children and joy and hope and love. Couldn’t have been me saying that, thought Annie dully. In my time, the most a girl ever says is, “You wanna go to a movie?” and the most a boy ever says is, “Yeah, okay, if I got nothin’ else to do.”
“The museum is closing,” said a bored voice.
Annie looked up, jarred. For a moment, she almost recognized the man; his ancient dark features; somebody’s father, somebody’s murderer—he was—no. He was only a guard, sweeping through the museum at closing. And she, Annie, was only a tourist, not even a New Yorker.