A sudden thought chilled me to the bone: what was my father’s role in all this? He had certainly abetted Antipater’s faked death and his disappearance from Rome. Had he done so knowing of Antipater’s mission? Was he, too, an agent of Mithridates, and therefore a traitor to Rome? Had he intentionally kept me in the dark, deceiving me just as Antipater had done?
Almost as disturbing was the only other possibility—that Antipater had duped him as well as me. What did that say about the wisdom of my father, the so-called Finder?
I felt an impulse to rouse Antipater and demand the truth. I rose from my bed, left my room, and went to his door. I stood there for a long time in the darkness, but I could not bring myself to knock. I was not yet ready to confront him. I returned to my bed. To bide my time was the wiser course, I told myself.
Would things have turned out differently, had I followed my first impulse?
I thought I would never sleep, but soon enough Somnus laid his hand on me, and Morpheus filled my head with terrible dreams. All was chaos, noise, and horror. My father and Antipater were in the midst of a bloody riot. Lurking on the outskirts, mad Nikanor suddenly lunged forward and sent a hissing serpent through the air. Then a massive finger of stone erupted from the earth and soared skyward, a white spire amid the fiery darkness. The beacon at the top was impossibly bright. The ray of light seared my eyes and burned into my brain, exposing my deepest fears and stripping me of every secret.
* * *
The next morning, at breakfast, I tried to look pleasantly surprised when Antipater made his announcement. I must have looked dazed, instead. I would never make a good spy.
“Gordianus, I do begin to think you’re unwell,” said Antipater. “Did you not hear me? Isidorus has arranged for both of us to visit the Pharos today. It’s quite a rare opportunity. The lighthouse isn’t open to just anyone, you know. We shall see it inside and out, and climb all the way to the top, if our legs hold up.”
“Wonderful,” I managed to say.
Antipater frowned and shook his head at my unaccountable lack of enthusiasm. “Don’t just sit there, gaping. Eat your breakfast and get ready to go out.”
We made our way to the wharf where the ferryboat carried workers to Pharos. A different, more attentive guard was on duty that morning; he demanded to see our pass, which Isidorus duly presented. We were escorted to the front of the queue and allowed to board the next boat.
Even in my glum, anxious mood, it was impossible not to be invigorated by the trip across the harbor. The air was cool and refreshing. The morning sun glittered on the water. The temples and obelisks of the royal islands to the east were in silhouette, scintillating with fiery outlines, but ahead of us the Pharos was lit from bottom to top with soft yellow light. From a distance it looked too delicate to be made of stone—it seemed to be built of butter or goat’s cheese. But as we drew closer, the illusion of softness faded, as if the warming sun itself baked and hardened the massive blocks into sharp-edged stone.
“The Pharos was built of a special kind of masonry,” said Isidorus, as if reading my thoughts, “something between a limestone and a marble. They say it actually grows harder as it’s exposed to the moist sea air. The Pharos has stood for nearly two hundred years, and the experts say there’s no reason it shouldn’t remain standing for another thousand.”
As we drew near the Pharos, I felt a sense of awe in spite of myself, and a thrill of excitement.
A guard met us as we disembarked. After examining our pass, he led us to a bench shaded by an awning of thatched reeds. Soldiers and green-clad workers were everywhere. The three of us looked rather conspicuous, wearing our ordinary tunics.
After a short wait, we were greeted by an imposing figure in green robes and a high headdress—Anubion, the man to whom I had seen Nikanor talking the previous day.
He looked askance at me, and his greeting to Antipater and Isidorus was stiff and formal; that was for my benefit, of course. I felt absurd, going along with the pretense that the three of them shared no special relationship, and that I knew nothing of their conspiracy.
As he led us up the long ramp to the entrance of the Pharos, Anubion recounted various facts and figures about the lighthouse, as if we were ordinary visitors receiving the privilege of a guided tour. The situation seemed increasingly unreal to me. The Pharos itself was almost too gigantic and magnificent to be comprehended, and the playacting of everyone, myself included, made me feel strangely detached, yet acutely aware of everything that was happening.
We passed through the grand entry of red granite, into a large room with a very high ceiling. I was struck at once by the strong smell of the place, a mingling of odors I had never experienced before. Soon I would be shown the source of these odors, but for the moment I was puzzled.
We were given a choice of ascending by an inner stairwell or by an outer ramp; Antipater preferred the more gradual ascent of the ramp, and so up we went, around and around, passing high windows that admitted bright daylight, sharing the way with workers and beasts of burden hauling wagons full of fuel.
“We use a variety of fuels to feed the fire,” Anubion explained. “Egypt is not blessed with forests, but we do have some small trees—the acacia and the tamarisk. Charcoal is also used, as is animal dung, but the brightest flame is produced by liquid called naphtha. Alexander was introduced to naphtha by the Babylonians, in whose lands there are chasms from which this remarkable substance flows like water from a spring. Have you ever heard of such a thing, Gordianus?”
I admitted that I had not.
“Here, let me show you.”
We stepped off the ramp and into one of the adjoining storage rooms, which was crowded with large clay vessels. Removing a stopper from one of these, Anubion invited me to take a sniff. I drew back my head at once, recoiling from the foul-smelling fumes.
“The stuff is highly volatile, meaning it will ignite even before a flame touches it, being kindled by the mere radiance of the fire.”
“It sounds dangerous,” said Antipater.
Anubion shrugged. “Every now and again a worker catches on fire—an example to the other workers to handle the stuff with extreme caution. Water is useless to put out a naphtha fire, so we keep heavy blankets close at hand, which can be used to smother the flames.”
We returned to the ramp. Now I understood why the smell of the Pharos was so peculiar and distinctive—the odors of animal dung and naphtha were mingled with the sweat of human toil and the salty smell of the sea.
At length, after ascending many ramps, we arrived at the level of the parapet where the Tritons resided at each of the four corners, with bronze signal mirrors installed between them. The sculptures and the mirrors alike were on a scale I had not imagined. Without warning, one of the Tritons produced a long, blaring note from its horn. I covered my ears, and the noise was still deafening. Whatever mechanism produced the sound was hidden from sight.
The means for adjusting the signal mirrors was more evident. I saw that Antipater and Isidorus took special note of these metal frameworks and fixtures, which could be made to tilt each mirror at various angles, both up and down and side to side.
Below us, the workers and animals ascending the long entrance ramp looked very small. The harbor was ablaze with morning light and crowded with sails. The city looked like a vast, intricate toy built for a god’s amusement.
We entered the next stage of the tower, which was set back from the lower portion and octagonal in shape. Stairways led upward along the outer walls, which were pierced by tall windows. The central shaft was occupied by an ingenious lift system by which winches and pulleys raised a platform all the way to the top of the tower; by this means heavy loads of fuel could be transported without men having to carry it. Anubion suggested that we should ride this device all the way to the top.