Free The Judgment of Caesar by Steven Saylor Page B

as the dappled shadows abruptly closed in around us. The boys sensed what I sensed: that we had entered a place that was not like other places. The gurgling of the river could be heard from nearby, along with the low buzzing of insects and the cries of birds in the treetops.
    Ahead, through hanging vines, I glimpsed sunlight on stone. We came to a glade circled by vegetation but open to the sky. The little temple in its midst was lit by a shaft of sunlight; the shaft was so clouded with motes of dust that it seemed a solid thing, and I should not have been surprised to see dragonflies suspended motionless within its light, held fast like insects in amber. But the dragonflies hovered and flitted unimpeded, making way for Bethesda, who approached the temple, mounted the short flight of steps to the colonnaded porch, and disappeared inside.
    The temple was of Egyptian design, with a flat roof, squat columns surmounted by capitals carved like lotus leaves, and worn hieroglyphs in riotous profusion on every surface. It betrayed no hint of Greek influence, and so almost certainly predated the conquest of Alexander and the reign of the Ptolemies. It was hundreds, possibly thousands of years old; older than Alexandria, older than Rome, perhaps as old as the Pyramids. Beside it, from a jumble of fern-covered stones, a spring trickled forth, forming a tiny pool.
    The spring was life itself; the spring accounted for this lush oasis beside the variable banks of the Nile, and for the sacred spell exerted by the place, and for the temple erected beside it. I gazed at the hieroglyphs on the temple; I listened to the faint gurgle of the spring; I felt warm sunlight on my shoulders, but I shivered, for the place seemed uncannily familiar. I raised a finger to my lips, instructing the boys to maintain their silence, and walked across the clearing to the steps of the temple.
    I smelled the perfume of burning myrrh. From within I heard the murmur of two voices. One of them belonged to Bethesda. The other voice might have been male or female; I could not tell. I mounted the steps to the porch, inclined my head toward the opening, and squinted at the gloom within. In brief, uncertain flashes, a flickering lamp illuminated brightly painted walls covered with strange images and glyphs. The grandest of these images was that of the god Osiris: the figure of a tall man swathed in white mummy wrapping, holding a flail and crook in his crossed arms and wearing on his head the atef crown, a tall white cone adorned with ostrich feathers on each side and with a small golden disk at the bulbous top.
    I heard the voices from within more clearly, but the language they spoke was strange to me—not any version of Egyptian of which I had any knowledge. To hear Bethesda’s voice uttering such alien sounds sent a shiver up my spine; it was as if some other being had claimed her voice, some creature foreign to me. I made no move to enter the temple, but stayed where I was on the threshold.
    From inside, the priestess of the place—for little by little I had decided the voice must be that of a woman—took up a chant. The chant grew louder, until I knew the boys must be able to hear it as well. I looked behind me and saw them at the edge of the glade, rooted to the spot, their eyes trained on the opening of the temple, their mouths shut.
    How long the chanting lasted I had no way of knowing, for it cast a spell on all of us. Time stopped; even the motes of dust in the air ceased their slow, swirling dance, and the dragonflies, afraid of its magic, dispersed. I closed my eyes and tried to discern whether the chanting carried some message of healing and hope, for had Bethesda not come here to find a cure for her malady? But the words were strange to me, and the feeling the chant inspired in me was not of hope but of resignation. Resignation to what? Not to the Fates or Fortune, but to something even older than those; to whatever unseen force metes out our measure of