At last they reached a small oasis. There were palm trees and even some birds, quail and falcon, preserved in a desolate landscape of salt flats. The place was dominated by a gaunt, ruined citadel, and small shrines stood coyly half-hidden by vegetation among the springs. There were no people here, no sign of habitation, nothing but picturesque ruin.

Alexander stepped forward, shadowed by his guards. He walked past the eroded foundations of vanished buildings, and reached a set of steps that led up to what had once been a temple. Alexander was visibly shaking as he climbed these worn steps. He reached a bare, dusty platform, and knelt down, his head bowed.

Eumenes murmured, “When we were here this place was ancient, but not ruined. The god Ammon came riding out in his sacred boat, borne aloft by purified bearers, and virgins sang songs of divinity. The King went through to the holiest shrine of all, a tiny room roofed by palm trunks, where he consulted the oracle. He never revealed the questions he asked, not even to me, not even to Hephaistion. And it was here that Alexander realized his divinity.”

Bisesa knew the story. During Alexander’s first pilgrimage the Macedonians had identified the ram-headed Libyan god Ammon with the Greek Zeus, and Alexander had learned that Zeus-Ammon was his true father, not King Philip of Macedon. From this point he would take Ammon to his heart for the rest of his life.

The King seemed crushed. Perhaps he had hoped to find that the shrine had somehow survived the Discontinuity, that this place, most sacred of all to him, might have been spared. But it was not so, and he had found nothing here but the dead weight of time.

Bisesa murmured to Eumenes, “Tell him it wasn’t always like this. Tell him that nine centuries later, when this place was part of the Roman Empire, and Christianity was the Empire’s official religion, there would still be a group of adherents, here at this oasis, still worshipping Zeus-Ammon, and Alexander himself.”

Eumenes nodded gravely, and in measured tones delivered this news from the future. The King replied, and Eumenes returned to Bisesa. “He says that even a god cannot conquer time, but nine hundred years should be enough for anybody.”

The party stayed a day at the oasis to recuperate and water the camels, and then returned to the shore.

42. Last Night

A week after their return to Babylon, Bisesa announced she believed the Eye of Marduk would send her home.

This was met with general incredulity, even from her closest companions. She sensed that Abdikadir thought this was no more than wishful thinking, that her impressions of the Eye and the entities beyond it might be fantasy—that all of this was no more than what she wanted to believe.

Alexander, though, faced her with a simple question. “Why you?”

“Because I asked it to,” she said simply.

And he thought that over, nodded, and let her go.

Skeptical or not, her companions, modern, British and Macedonian, accepted her sincerity, and supported her preparations for her departure, such as they were. They even accepted the date she announced for going. She still had no proof of any of this, and couldn’t even be sure if she was interpreting her inchoate impressions of the Eye correctly. But everyone took her seriously, and she was flattered by that, even if some of them gloated a little about how stupid she was going to look if the Eye let her down.

As the last day approached, Bisesa sat with Josh in the chamber of Marduk, with the looming, silent Eye hanging over them. They clung to each other. They were beyond passion: they had made love in defiance of the Eye’s cold glare, but even that could not drive the Eye out of their consciousness. All they wanted now, all they could ask of each other, was comfort.

Josh whispered, “Do you think they care at all about what they have done—the world they have taken apart, those who have died?”

“No. Oh, perhaps they have a certain academic interest in such emotions. Nothing beyond that.”

“Then they are less than me. If I see an animal killed, I am capable of caring for it, of feeling its pain.”

“Yes,” she said patiently, “but, Josh, you don’t care for the millions of bacteria that die in your gut every second. We aren’t bacteria; we are complex, independent, conscious creatures. But they are so far above usthat we are diminished to nothing.”

“Then why would they send you home?”

“I don’t know. Because it amuses them, I suppose.”

He glowered at her. “What they want doesn’t matter. Are you sure this is what you want, Bisesa? Even if you do go home— what if Myra doesn’t want you?”

She turned to look at him. His eyes were huge in the lamplight gloom, his skin very smooth, young-looking. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? Bisesa, who are you? Who is she? After the Discontinuity, we are all fractured selves that straddle worlds. Perhaps some splinter of you could be given back to some splinter of Myra—”

Resentment exploded in her, as her complicated feelings for both Myra and Josh came bubbling up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He sighed. “You can’t go back, Bisesa. It would mean nothing. Stay here.” He grabbed her hands. “We have houses to build, crops to grow—and children to raise. Stay here with me, Bisesa, and have my children. This world is no longer some alien artifact; it is our home.”

Suddenly she softened. “Oh, Josh.” She pulled him to her. “Dear Josh. I want to stay, believe me I do. But I can’t. It’s not just Myra. This is an opportunity, Josh. An opportunity they haven’t offered to anybody else. Whatever their motives, I have to take it.”

“Why?”

“Because of what I might learn. About why this has happened. About them. About what we might do about all this in the future.”

“Ah.” He smiled wistfully. “I should have known. I can argue with a mother about her love for her child, but I can’t stand in the way of a soldier’s duty.”

“Oh, Josh—”

“Take me with you.”

She sat back, shocked. “I wasn’t expecting that. ”

“Bisesa, you are everything to me. I don’t want to stay here without you. I want to follow you, wherever you go.”

“But I may be killed,” she said softly.

“If I die by your side I will die happy. What else is life for?”

“Josh—I don’t know what to say. All I do is hurt you.”

“No,” he said gently. “Myra is always there—if not between us, then at your side. I understand that.”

“Well, even so, nobody loved me this way before.”

They embraced again, and were silent for a while.

Then he said, “You know, they don’t have a name.”

“Who?”

“The baleful intelligences who engineered all this. They are not God, or any gods—”

“No,” she said. She closed her eyes. She could feel them even now, like a breeze from the heart of an old, dying wood, dry and rustling and laden with decay. “They are not gods. They are of this universe—they were born of it, as we were. But they are old—terribly old, old beyond our imagining.”

“They have lived too long.”

“Perhaps.”

“Then that is what we will call them.” He looked up at the Eye, chin jutting, defiant. “The Firstborn. And may they rot in hell.”

To celebrate Bisesa’s peculiar departure, Alexander ordered an immense feast. It lasted three days and three nights. There were athletic contests, horse races, dances and music—and even an immense battue in the Mongol style, the tales of which had impressed even Alexander the Great.

On the last night Bisesa and Josh were guests of honor at a lavish banquet in Alexander’s commandeered palace. The King himself did her the honor of dressing like Ammon, his father-god, in slippers, horns and purple cloak. It was a violent, noisy, drunken affair, like the ultimate rugby club outing. By threeA.M. the booze had polished off poor Josh, who had to be carried out to a bedroom by Alexander’s chamberlains.