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wobbling. In the dim light of the brass lamp suspended from the ceiling, she
saw her sleeping gown was in disarray and saw the flush rising from her
breasts up to her throat. Her heart beat fast and frantic, then slowed to
steady rhythm.
She groaned, not with pleasure, but with shame and fear. Squeezing her eyes
shut, she said aloud, "What's happening to me? Gaia, give me the strength."
AKHNATON OPENED HIS EYES, drawing in a shuddery breath. He murmured, "My dew
is in all your limbs." He lay back on the couch in his private chamber,
waiting for his wild pulse beat to steady and the throbbing in his temples to
abate.
Perspiration gleamed on his near naked body, touching and stinging the wounds
inflicted only hours before by Cawdor. The pain was sharp, almost exquisite,
and allowed him to pull his mind back. He deliberately averted his gaze from
the bulge stretching the fabric of his loincloth.
Penetrating Krysty Wroth's sleeping conscious-ness and directing it in the
channels he wanted it to go had been more strenuous than he had anticipated.
Though her natural empathic powers provided him with egress, her loyalty and
love for Cawdor and the rest of her people formed a very strong barrier.
Rather than try to batter it down, he had searched for ways around it.
The primal force of her sexuality was one route, but even that led only so
far. It was deeply entangled with the higher emotions, not a separate thing
easily isolated and manipulated as it had been with the others O'Brien and
Harrier.
O'Brien's intellect was so regimented that most of her emotions had been
compartmentalized, locked away in a drawer in the dark recesses of her mind.
It hadn't been difficult to unlock and use the con-tents of that drawer. In
fact, she had been patheti-cally grateful to him for opening it.
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His eyes grew wet when he thought of O'Brien. She had loved him madly,
unconditionally. He had loved her as his mother, his mate, but never as his
queen.
He would have made her so if only she had lived.
Harrier had been quite different. Her emotions lurked very close to the
surface and were rather shal-low, at least compared to O'Brien's. She had
loved him, too, though she really hadn't had much of a choice.
Akhnaton sat up and walked across the room to the window. He transmitted a
tentative probe, seek-ing out Nefron's mind. Without much surprise, she
detected his presence and deflected it. He smiled slightly. She possessed none
of her mother's com-pliance of spirit.
He looked to the west and saw his pyramid thrust-ing up toward the deep, blue-
black sky, gleaming white and ghostly in the starlight. It lacked only a few
more casing blocks and the capstone. Then it would stand whole, a beacon of
hope lighting a path of his glory over the barren face of the world.
Once it was complete, so would he be, able to shape and forge the planet into
a paradise. He would know what it was like to be Osiris, the father of a new
civilization.
And he would know again, at long last, what it was like to love.
Chapter Twenty
After Mildred returned to the hall of women after the indoctrination session,
Grandmother sent her off to another part of the palace, to report to Mimses.
The rambling building was divided into quarters, and one quarter was the
domain of
Pharaoh's chief counselor. As she padded along the corridors, she kept an eye
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out for either Kela or Nefron.
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When the corridor branched to the right and to the left, she impulsively
turned left, in the opposite direction of where Grandmother had instructed her
to go.
Rich tapestries hung on the polished paneled walls, the lofty ceiling adorned
with ornate and in-tricate carvings and silver-chased scrollwork. The concept
she was walking through an old movie set was almost as hard to accept as the
idea she had been transported back to ancient Egypt.
As she turned a corner, she nearly trod on Nef-ron's toes. The girl almost
dropped the bowl of fruit in her hands and she regarded Mildred with wide,
fearful eyes.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded in an accusatory whisper.
"I work here, thanks in part to you."
Nefron shook her head vehemently, her glossy black hair gleaming in the
lights.
"You are in Pharaoh's quarter. You have been assigned to Mimses. Go."
Nefron made a move to step around her, but Mil-dred restrained her with a firm
hand. "You can spare a sec for Scheherazade. A girl came to me this morning.
She told me you had sent her and that Jak Lauren was safe."
"Kela, my maid. She spoke the truth. She also visited your friends in the cell
blocks."
"What's being done about Krysty?"
"I am on my way to her now," Nefron answered hesitantly. "Pharaoh wishes to
see her this morn-ing."
"What's the plan for getting us out of here?"
Nefron glanced up and down the corridor. "I'll arrange transportation and
provisions." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]