Part 16 (2/2)
”Does the Sphinx know he is what he is?” he said ”You are ine I know less of you than of any other person I have spent so many hours with”
”I tell you, I am no mystery!”
”No one is a mystery to himself,” said Caesar ”But what you truly want, what you truly are--those things reards to you”
It was so simple! How could he say that? I wanted to be with him, to be loved by him, to become a partner with him in a union that was--political? military? matrimonial? O Isis, I realized then that I was not sure what I wanted--or rather, that the thing I wanted ht be brand new: a new alliance--a new country--perhaps formed of east and west, the way Alexander had envisioned it But it was a vision that had died with him, whatever it had been If it was to be reborn, it would have to be refashi+oned for our world, three hundred years later
”You look so sole?”
”Of Alexander”
”Strange I think of hiypt, that calls forth visions of Alexander Here he went to the oracle, and found out he was the son of A Ahed, too ”So I am Alexander's father!”
”No--but this child that you are father of, is perhaps--can be--”
He quickly put his finger over my mouth, and stopped me in mid-sentence
”No! None of that! Do you wish to call down the wrath of envious Gods? No!” He looked angry ”I went to Alexander's too, when I was in Spain, and I was only forty, I came across a statue of Alexander I realized that forty years after his birth, he had already been dead for seven years! He had finished conquering the knoorld, and had died, and here I was, seven years older, and I had accoed me I left that statue a different person Now, this ti there all encased in his golden arry about it--I could see the rage on his face--and I was able to say, ”I have done all that I wished since that day in Spain, excepting one thing only: to complete your conquests' ” He turned and looked at me, his eyes a little surprised that he had voiced it aloud
”Yes?” I encouraged him ”Say it Say what it is you still want”
”To conquer the Parthians And beyond that, India”
The air was still The words hung there
”O Isis!” I breathed
”It can be,” he said ”It is possible”
Butyou are fifty-two years old, the ree, Rome is filled with your political eneypt you are fifty-two years old, the ree, Rome is filled with your political eneypt I thought The eht The eed
”I too have sought solace at the tomb of my ancestor Alexander,” I said cautiously ”His blood runs in me And in our child,” I reerous--desert de us on to doom”
”No, when Alexander went out into the desert he found found his dream,” said Caesar stubbornly ”And if dreams and doom are intertwined--I could not find it in myself to avoid the dream for fear of the doom” his dream,” said Caesar stubbornly ”And if dreams and doom are intertwined--I could not find it in myself to avoid the drea the horizon for the appearance of the tips of the pyramids, the only monuments to defy doootten their stories if not their names, and robbers have made off with their treasures and desecrated their ht e first perceived, like the tiny points of pins, the apexes of the pyrareen banks of the Nile As the sun sank and touched, fleetingly, the stones, they glowed
”Look!” I said to Caesar ”There they stand!”
He stood up to see the tiht
At the faintest light of dae set sail, and as the pale yellow gold crept across the sky,the pyraer By the time we docked and they filled a portion of the sky, Caesar had fallen silent He stood and stared Then he set out, walking briskly, on the causeway toward them I followed in my litter I could not have walked as fast as he in any case, but certainly not now
My mind conjured up the shades of the old priests who had accoe; they , clouds of incense enveloping theht cloak snapping in the wind
At its base I alighted from the litter, and stood beside him He was still silent He had to tilt his head far back even to see the top I putI felt soan to walk around the base of the pyraht round Caesar kept walking out in front, faster than I have ever seen anyone ithout actually running It was as if he wished to outpace us, and encounter the pyramids alone I told my bearers to stop, and to take me near the Sphinx instead I kneould come there, when he had had his fill of the pyramid I also kneould not come before he was ready
They erected a pavilion to shade me from the sun while I waited The sun had crept up in the sky, and theI stared at the melancholy face of the creature Had we been here at daould have seen his face bathed in those first rays that are pink and soft, for he faces east He has greeted the rising Re for--howon earth Who built hiuard the pyramids? Were they built to lie under his protection? A mystery Sand covers his paws, and every few hundred years it is dug away Then the desert blows it in again, and he settles down in his soft, golden bed He rests, but does not sleep
Caesar came around the corner, as suddenly as a thunderclap He hurried over tohiorated him ”Co chair
The sun was hot, beating down onyou!” I said ”It is too hot for such haste, and the sands here are treacherous!”
Only then did he seeether alked in a more nored by the noon sun into hard whiteness, and there was no shadow of pity anywhere on its features
”The lips,” Caesar finally said ”They are longer than a er than a tree!”
”He is ypt, as he has since before living memory”
”Yet he was et that The pyramids were her up the Nile you will see other wonders,” I said ”Teh it seems impossible that men could have raised them”
”Yet we know they did,” he said ”There are no s intrinsically unknowable, s that we do not understand yet”
We watched the day swing round the rew intense into enter between the cracks of the awnings, searching like eager fingers for an opening Wherever they succeeded in getting through, the sand they struck grew too hot to touch The pyrae in front of the pure blue sky
Caesar leaned back and watched the one of the staff to fan him with the small, brass-bound military fans It did not do much to stir the overheated, still air
”You should use one ofby with fans of ostrich feathers, wide half-circles that could wave and send rolls of air in all directions
”Never,” he said ”It even looks decadent Who would use a fan like that?”
”People who are hot,” I said ”As we go farther up the Nile, closer and closer to Africa, and the heat intensifies, I wager you will beg for one of these!”
”You kno fond I aaive me if I win?” I asked