Dominating the sanctuary was a statue of the goddess. On her head she wore a crown made of two curving horns that held between them a golden solar disk. Between her breasts, suspended from a necklace, was the sacred object called the Isis Knot, shaped like an ankh but with the arms turned down; as I would later learn, it was a symbol of her monthly flow, which in some divine way was connected with the annual inundation of the Nile. One hand was raised to touch one breast; the other held a breast-shaped vessel for the collection of her sacred milk. Her broad face was beautiful and serene, radiating wisdom.

“The goddess will tell me what must be done,” declared the priest. “Then you will do as Isis prescribes, and the answer to the riddle will come to you. I am sure of it.” He turned to the statue and raised his arms. “O Isis, universal mother, mistress of the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things divine, queen of the living, queen of the dead, queen of the immortals, singular and utmost manifestation of all gods and goddesses, known by many names in many places, we call upon you!”

I shivered and felt slightly faint. What sort of test or labor might Isis demand of me?

I had a feeling I was not going to like the answer.

*   *   *

“Gordianus of Rome, you fool!” I whispered. “How did you ever get yourself into such a predicament?”

There was no one but myself to hear the words. Lit by the last flickering light of my torch, the granite walls surrounding me made no answer.

As the sun had begun to set behind the Libyan mountains, I had climbed once again to the hidden doorway of the Great Pyramid, accompanied only by the priest of Isis. Antipater, Djal, and Kemsa watched from below as the priest lifted the stone panel and lit a torch for me. Then, holding the torch in one hand and clutching the rope in the other, for the second time that day I descended into the heart of the pyramid. Above me, the priest let the panel fall shut.

Alone, I reached the burial chamber.

For as long as the torch burned strongly, I simply stood there, staring at the sarcophagus. Then the torch began to sputter, and I thought to myself: if I am to lie in the empty sarcophagus of Kheops, as Isis prescribed, now is the time to do it. Once the torch went out, I would surely become disoriented and lose all sense of direction. I might also lose my nerve completely, and go scrambling back up the narrow passage, desperate to escape from the bowels of the pyramid.

Isis had directed Djal to seek a solution to his problem by lying in the sarcophagus. According to her priest, she had directed me to do the same thing, promising that an answer to the riddle would come to me. It seemed to me that this Egyptian goddess was singularly lacking in imagination, to prescribe the same ordeal to two suppliants in a row.

When the priest made this announcement, I immediately protested—the very idea was madness—and looked to Antipater to back me up. But my old tutor had done the opposite. He seemed convinced that everything the priest said must be true, and that I was indeed the emissary promised by Isis.

“Everything that’s happened since we left Rome has been leading to this moment,” he declared. “You must do this, Gordianus. It is your destiny.”

Antipater’s certainty left me speechless. The priest nodded gravely. Djal fell to his knees and looked up at me imploringly. I looked to Kemsa, hoping he might tell me that Djal deserved his fate, but instead he embraced me, as one might a valiant warrior about to leave on a perilous mission, and wiped tears from his eyes.

“And to think, it was I, humble Kemsa, who led you to your destiny!”

They were all determined that I should do as the goddess desired. In truth, some part of me was flattered by their confidence, and intrigued by the challenge. But once inside the pyramid, that part of me began to dwindle and fade, rather like the flame of the dying torch.

“Madness!” I whispered as I climbed inside the sarcophagus and stretched out full-length. The rough-hewn granite felt cold to the touch. I clutched the stump of the torch and stared at the last dying embers until the orange glow faded to utter blackness. I cast the stump away and folded my hands over my chest.

“Now what?” I said aloud.

No answer came, only silence.

I shut my eyes, then opened them. It made no difference. I was surrounded by infinite blackness. I blinked and suddenly found myself confused: were my eyes open or shut? I had to reach up to touch my eyelids to be sure.

As complete as the darkness was the silence. I found myself making small noises, snapping my fingers or clicking my teeth, simply to reassure myself that I had not gone deaf.

Eventually the utter lack of sight and sound, unnerving at first, began to have a sedative effect. I closed my eyes and lay perfectly still. It had been a long, hot, tiring day. Did I doze, or only imagine that I did so? I seemed to enter a state of consciousness I had never experienced before, neither asleep nor awake.

A succession of images and ideas passed through my mind. As one thought faded, leaving only a dim impression, another took its place. Where was I? What time was it? I reminded myself that it was night, and I was inside the Great Pyramid, but these demarcations lost all meaning. I sensed that I had arrived at a place and a moment that were at the very center of time and space, outside the ordinary realm of mortal experience.

The second riddle of the Sphinx resounded in my thoughts: I am seen by all who pass, but no one sees me. I posed a riddle that everyone knows, but no one knows me. I look toward the Nile, but I turn my back upon the pyramids.

I found myself thinking of the rows of sphinxes we had seen on the approach to the Temple of Serapis, some of them nearly buried by wind-blown sand. As if I were a bird with wings, I seemed to rise in the air and look down upon the young Roman and his old Greek tutor as they talked about Oedipus and the riddle he had solved, and then I flew northward, following the course of the Nile until I came to the plateau and landed atop the Great Pyramid, and looked down on the temples and roadways—and the large, incongruous sand dune among them.

This vision faded and I sat upright in the sarcophagus. There were no longer any walls around me. I was surrounded by a sort of membrane, smooth and featureless and faintly glowing, rather as I imagine the inside of an egg might look to an unborn chick, if an egg could be made of twilight.

Suddenly I sensed I was no longer alone, and turned my head to see a dog-headed figure that stood upright on two legs. Slowly he walked toward me. His face was black on one side, golden on the other. In one hand he carried a herald’s wand, and in the other, a green palm branch.

“Anubis?” I whispered.

“You know me better as Mercury.” His long snout never moved, yet somehow he spoke.

“You’ve come!” I said, hardly able to believe it. “The priest said such a thing would happen, and here you are! Will you help me solve the riddle?”

“You do not need my help, Gordianus. You already know the answer.”

He was right. I did know the answer. “You have no message for me, then?”

“I visit you not as a messenger, but as a herald, to announce her coming.”

“Who? Who is coming?”

Anubis fell silent, and then began to fade, as thoughts fade. Traces of his presence lingered on my eyes, even when I shut them. When I opened my eyes again, Isis stood before me.

I knew it was Isis by the crown she wore, with its curving horns and the golden disk between them, and by the Isis Knot between her breasts. Her linen gown was the color of blood. Her skin was golden brown, the color of honey. Her eyes glittered like sparks of sunlight on the Nile. She was unspeakably beautiful.