Vengeance of Orion Part 23

"Leave now, tonight, right now now," she exhorted me. "Just the two of us. They won't bother trying to follow or bring us back. Lukka is handling the digging, that's all they really want of you. We can get away!"

I stroked her golden hair, glowing in the pale light of the moon. "I can't leave Lukka and his men. They trust me. And there's no telling what Joshua would do if we ran off. He's a fanatic. He might slaughter Lukka and the men once the tunnel is finished: sacrifice them to his G.o.d."

"What of it? They will die one day, sooner or later. They are soldiers, they expect expect to be killed." to be killed."

"I can't do that," I said.

"Orion, I'm afraid of this place. I'm afraid that the G.o.ds you visit will take you away from me forever."

With a shake of my head I told her, "No. I promised you I would bring you to Egypt and that is what I will do. Only after that will I deal with the one I seek."

"Then let us go to Egypt now! Forget Lukka and the others. Tell the G.o.ds to bring us to Egypt now, tonight!"

"I don't tell tell the G.o.ds anything," I said. the G.o.ds anything," I said.

"Then let me speak with them. I am a queen, after all, and a daughter of Zeus himself. They will listen to me."

"There are times," I said, "when you speak like a spoiled little child who is so totally self-centered that she deserves a spanking."

She knew when she had reached the limit of my patience. Winding her arms around my neck, she breathed, "I've never been spanked. You wouldn't be so brutal to me, would you?"

"I might."

"Couldn't you think of some other punishment?" Her fingers traced down my spine. "Something that would give you more pleasure?"

I played the game. "What do you have in mind?"

She spent much of the night showing me.

Although Helen and I usually took our meals with Lukka and the men, at our own fire by our own tents, now and then Joshua or Ben-Jameen would invite me to have supper with them. Me, alone. They made it clear that women did not eat with the men. I declined most of these invitations, but out of politeness I accepted a few.

Joshua was always surrounded by the elders or priests, with plenty of servants and women bustling around his table. The talk was always of the destiny of the Children of Israel, and how their G.o.d rescued them from slavery in Egypt and promised them dominance over this land they called Canaan.

Ben-Jameen, his father, and brothers spoke of different things when I ate with them. The old man recalled his days of slavery in Egypt, laboring as a brickmaker for the king, whom he called pharaoh. Once I hinted that Joshua seemed like a fanatic to me. The old man smiled tolerantly.

"He lives in the shadow of Moses. It is not easy to bear the burden of leaders.h.i.+p after the greatest leader of all men has gone on to join Abraham and Isaac."

Ben-Jameen chimed in, "Joshua is trying to make an army out of a people who were slaves. He is trying to create discipline and courage where there has been little more than hunger and fear."

I agreed that it took an extraordinary man to accomplish that. And I began looking at these Israelites with fresh eyes, afterward. Unlike the Achaians at Troy, who were the topmost level of a strictly hierarchical society, the warrior cla.s.s, hereditary plunderers, the Israelites were an entire nation: men, women, children, flocks, tents, all their possessions, wandering through this sun-blasted land of rocks and mountains seeking a place of their own. They had no warrior cla.s.s. The only special cla.s.s I could see were the priests, and even they worked with their hands when they had to. I began to feel a new respect for them, and wondered if the promises of their G.o.d would ever be fulfilled.

Shortly after noon on the fourth day of the digging, Lukka came out of the big tent, squinted up painfully at the merciless sun, and walked toward me. As always, no matter heat or cold, he wore his leather harness and weapons. I knew that his coat of mail and his iron helmet were close to hand. Lukka was ready for battle at all times.

I was standing on a low rise, examining the distant wall of Jericho. Not a sign of activity. Not a sentry in sight. The city wavered in the heat haze as the sun blasted down on my bare shoulders and neck. I had stripped down to my kilt.

We had fired a few flaming arrows into the city that morning. Each day we made a small demonstration of force somewhere along the western wall, to make the city's defenders believe that we were there probing for a weak spot. But in the noonday sun no one stirred. Or, hardly anyone.

Lukka was dripping sweat by the time he reached me. I had tuned my body to accommodate the heat, opening up the capillaries just under the skin and adjusting my body temperature. Like any human being, I needed water to stay alive. Unlike ordinary humans, I could keep the water in my vital systems for a much longer time; I sweated away only a small fraction of it.

"You must be part camel," Lukka said, as I offered him the canteen I carried. He gulped at it thirstily.

"How goes the work?" I asked.

"We've reached the base of the outermost wall. I've given the workers some of our own iron spear points to attack the bricks. They're as hard as stone."

"How long will it take to break through?"

He shrugged his bare shoulders, making the leather harness creak slightly. "A day for each one. We could work the night through."

"Let me see," I said, striding toward the tent.

It was cooler under its shade, but the air inside the tent was close and confining. Dust hovered, thick enough to make me sneeze. Lukka ordered the workers to stop and leave the tunnel. I got down on my hands and knees, ducked into the darkness, and wormed my way forward.

The tunnel had been dug wide enough for two men to crawl through, side by side. Lukka went in with me, slightly behind. We carried no lights, but every dozen feet or so the workers had poked a reed-thin hole up through the ground's surface. They provided air to breathe and a dim scattering of light that was barely enough to avert total darkness.

Quickly enough we came to the tunnel's end: a blank facing of stone-hard bricks. Two short poles lay on the ground, each with an iron spear point lashed to it. The bricks were scratched and gouged.

In the dim light I took one of the poles in my hands and jabbed it at the bricks. A dull chunking sound, and a few flakes of dried mud fell away.

"This is going to be slow work," I said.

"And noisy," Lukka pointed out. "Especially if we work at night, they'll hear us from inside the city."

He was right, as usual.

We scuttled out of the tunnel like a pair of rodents scrabbling through their lair. The bright sun and air of daylight seemed wonderful, despite the heat.

"No night work," I said to Lukka. "The time we might gain isn't worth the risk of being discovered."

"When we get close to the main wall, they'll hear us chipping away even in the daytime," he said.

"We'll have to think of something, then."

It was Joshua who thought of the solution. That night, when I told him we were getting close enough to be heard inside the city, he curled his fingers through his beard for several long moments, then looked up with a fierce smile.

"We will make so much noise that they will never hear your diggers at work," he said. "We will make a joyful noise unto the Lord."

I was not certain that his plan made any sense, but Joshua insisted that all would be well and told me to resume digging in the morning.

On my way back to my own tent that evening, as the sun dipped below the western mountains, turning them deep violet and the sky a blazing golden red, a stranger stepped in front of me.

"Orion," he whispered. "Come with me."

He was m.u.f.fled in a long gray robe with a dark burnoose over it, the hood thrown over his head and hiding the features of his face.

But I knew who he was, and followed him wordlessly as he picked his way through the tents of the Israelite camp and out across the green field toward the distant river.

"This is far enough," I said at last. "We can stop here. Even if you glow like a star no one from the camp will notice."

He laughed, a low chuckle deep in his throat. "Not much chance of my putting out enough radiation for them them to find me." to find me."

By them them, I knew he did not mean the Israelites.

"You are helping these people to overcome Jericho. That pleases me."

"Will I be able to leave for Egypt once Jericho is taken?" I asked.

"Of course." He seemed surprised that I asked.

"And you will revive Athene?"

"I will try, Orion. I will try. I can promise nothing more. There are difficulties-enormous difficulties. They They are trying to stop me." are trying to stop me."

"I know."

"They've contacted you?"

"I contacted them. They think you've gone mad."

He laughed again. Bitterly. "I struggle alone to uphold the continuum-their continuum-so that they can continue to exist. I stand between them and utter destruction. I protect the Earth and my creatures with every particle of my strength and wisdom. And they call that madness. The fools!" continuum-so that they can continue to exist. I stand between them and utter destruction. I protect the Earth and my creatures with every particle of my strength and wisdom. And they call that madness. The fools!"

"Hera told me that if I help you, she and the others will destroy me."

In the shadow of his hood I could not make out the features of his face. It was the first time I had met the Golden One that he did not radiate light and splendor.

When he failed to reply, I added, "And you have warned me that if I fail to help you, you will destroy me."

"And you have told me me, Orion, that you want to destroy me. A pretty situation."

"Can you revive Athene?"

"If I can't, no one else can. No one else would even try, Orion. It takes a... madman, like me, to even attempt such a thing."

"Then I will continue to help you."

"And you will tell me exactly exactly what they say to you, whenever they contact you again." what they say to you, whenever they contact you again."

"If you wish," I said.

"I do not wish, Orion. I command. I can see your thoughts as clearly as words written across the sky in fire. You cannot hide anything from me."

"Then you see your own death."

He laughed, with genuine humor this time. "Ah, Orion, you truly believe that you can conquer the G.o.ds."

"You are not G.o.ds. You can delude ignorant nomads such as Joshua and his people, but I know you better."

"Of course you do," he patronized. "Now, get back to your Helen and let her try to wheedle you off to Egypt again."

There was nothing he did not know, I realized. He stood before me, and even in his disguise I could sense his condescending smile.

"Tell me one thing," I asked. "Why is Jericho so important? Why are these people of Joshua's so dear to your heart? Once you said that you are not so egocentric as to be pleased when people wors.h.i.+p you. Is that still true?"

For a moment or two he did not answer. When he finally did, his voice was low and serious. "Yes, it is still true, Orion. It is pleasant to have my creatures adore me, I admit. But the real reason for Jericho, the real reason I will bring these people to rule this land of Canaan, is to humble those others who seek to thwart my plans. They stopped me at Troy, with your help. They will not stop me here!"

I had no reply to his words.

"They think me mad, do they? We shall see who is the true protector of the continuum. They will all bow to me, Orion. All of them!"

He turned and walked toward the river alone. I watched him in the deepening shadows of night, as the stars came out one by one, until his figure had disappeared into the darkness.

Chapter 30.

"THIS could destroy all our plans, all our hopes."

Ben-Jameen's youthful face looked very grave. He stood in my tent alongside Lukka, with one of the Hatti soldiers behind, head hung low, two other soldiers flanking him, and a small angry crowd of Israelite men standing just outside in ominous silence.

Helen sat in the far corner of the tent, on a wooden chair that had been given to me by one of Ben-Jameen's brothers. One of the women had brought her a soft, feathered cus.h.i.+on, gaily decorated in bold stripes of red and blue.

But Ben-Jameen ignored her and said to me, "This. .h.i.tt.i.te soldier has had his way with one of the young women of my tribe, and now refuses to do the right thing by her."

I was surprised, almost stunned, at this. For weeks now we had lived in the Israelite camp without a hint of trouble. Hardly any of the women would have anything to do with men who were not of their own tribes. The few who did, young widows and the rare unmarried woman who did not worry about her virginity, had been enough to keep Lukka and his men reasonably happy.

But now one of the young women demanded marriage as the price of her lovemaking.

I looked at Lukka. His face was grimly impa.s.sive as he stood before me. I saw that his sword was at his side. Ben-Jameen, standing beside him, looked almost like a child: smaller, slimmer, his youthful face unlined, unscarred by battle. But he was representing the honor of his tribe.

"Bring the man before me," I said.

Lukka raised a hand. "With your permission, my lord, I will speak for the prisoner."

I raised an eyebrow.

"It is customary among us," said Lukka. "I am his commanding officer. I am responsible for his conduct."

So that was the way the game would be played, I said to myself. Lukka was standing between me and the accused man. If I wanted to mete out punishment, it would have to touch Lukka first.

Ben-Jameen glanced at the bearded soldier, and seemed to understand what Lukka's words implied.

"The young lady in question," I asked Ben-Jameen, "was she forced?"

He shook his head. "She does not claim so."