Free Heart of the Gods by Valerie Douglas Page A

people, the Pharaohs, both good and bad, the peoples and civilizations they created, the ones they interacted with. Learning how they lived, how they succeeded and how they failed, teaches us more about who and what we are, where we came from, how we became what we are, so perhaps we can figure out where we are going.”
    “You’re a romantic,” she teased gently.
    Looking into her lovely blue eyes, feeling his heart catch when he did, he couldn’t disagree.
    With a sigh of amused resignation, seeing the sparkle in her eyes, he said, smiling, “I suppose I am. See what you make of this… Gloves?”
    Obediently she drew on the clean cotton gloves.
    He handed her the fragment of pottery. It was flat, like a tablet would be.
    Studying the writing on it, Raissa shook her head. “I’m afraid that you’ll have to get me more than this.”
    There were clearly hieroglyphs on it but only fragments of what might have been words.
    “Let’s see what I can find,” he said, teasing another fragment loose. “And then there is this, putting together the pieces of a puzzle.”
    He handed it to her.
    Carefully, she tried to fit the two pieces together in a way that made sense, after all, they were likely from the same piece of tablet. With a laugh of triumph, she did.
    Laughing, too, Ky said, “See. That’s another reason why I do it, that moment of discovery. Not so much aha, but…isn’t that amazing?”
    He glanced at his watch.
    “It’s time to go back,” he said.
    She stood and offered him a hand out of the pit.
    With a smile, he took it, let her pull him up.
     
     
    Heinrich Zimmer watched them all morning but particularly the girl―Farrar’s new translator. With all that shining hair, those pretty eyes and that body, she was beautiful. He went hot just at the thought of touching her.
    And she hadn’t looked at him twice although he’d seen her glance surreptitiously at Farrar from time to time.
    If he’d been Farrar he’d have been all over that but Farrar had scruples, principles, and judging by the surreptitious looks Farrar gave the girl in return, he hadn’t touched her yet.
    He was a fool. What a waste.
    Of course, a girl like her wouldn’t give someone like Heinrich Zimmer the time of day and he knew it. He wasn’t pretty like Farrar with his thick dark hair. He was big, bluff, his hair was receding and he was not pretty. Yet he knew himself to be ten times the man Farrar was. He knew it. A woman like that wouldn’t see it, though.
    In the back of his mind a small voice whispered, as it did nearly constantly these days.
    He’d grown accustomed to it, to that voice in the back of his mind, had even listened to its counsel now and then while trying hard not to think too hard about the source of it.
    He wasn’t insane. Only the mad heard voices.
    ‘You could have her,’ it sighed, whispered. ‘We can help you. Let us in…’
    It was tempting, so tempting.
    He watched her hair flag in the winds, the long strong muscles of her legs and envisioned them wrapped around him.
     
     
    The dig had been going on for weeks as they carefully excavated down through the accumulated layers, sifting through sand that had built up over millennia, preserving what lay beneath and within it as the blowing sand above had scoured away the walls. It was tedious, meticulous work but it had to be done carefully or risk damaging what might lie beneath it.
    Ky patiently skimmed away another layer of sand and then sat back on his heels, a small chill going through him as it always did in these circumstances, before he began to carefully excavate the surprisingly small gray dome of bone until he’d revealed more of the skull buried beneath the sand.
    This was unusual.
    In fact it was nearly unheard of, the ancient Egyptians had been nearly fanatic about burying their dead, had even gone to the length of transporting bodies back to make certain they were buried in Egyptian soil, or else their souls would be left to wander. To