Free Shadows on the Aegean by Suzanne Frank Page A

jolted awake. Sitting up, he slowly focused on the room around him. He was not in the dark confines
     of his prison cell, where despair was an odor that clung in the night, where men’s panicked cries to stone gods filled his
     ears.
    He breathed deeply.
    Instead, his wide, opulent chamber was washed in dawn’s glow. The white linen sheets that draped his couch were tinted pink
     and orange. The covered body of his wife moved gently as she breathed. This was his home. He was safe. Free. The most powerful
     man in Egypt, next to Pharaoh, living forever!
    So what had awakened him? He rose stiffly, went to the alcove, and washed his face and hands. He looked into the bronze reflection
     for a moment. At sunrise his foreignness was most apparent. The light seemed to catch fire on the red stubble of his chin
     and scalp. His skin was sprinkled with freckles, beaten into one copper mass by the sun. His eyes, the brownish green of the
     Nile, contrasted with his bronze brows and lashes. He looked away. A decan with his brush and paint-wielding manservant, and
     Ipiankhu was as Egyptian as any other man.
    He pushed away from the mirror and he walked to the door overlooking his courtyard. The famine had killed any beauty that
     had once dwelt there. Vegetation rotted in stagnant pools of water. Yet the famine would last only four more Inundations.
     This he knew; he’d been assured of it.
    Ipiankhu raised his gaze to the sun.
Go to Pharaoh!
a powerful command whispered through his questing mind. Senwosret needed him. The knowledge seized him and he clapped, waking
     his manservant to prepare him for an audience. When slaves came to get him less than a decan later, they were stunned. Surely
     Ipiankhu was an awesome mage!
    Pharaoh Senwosret was sitting up on his couch. His bare head was covered, lines formed by Inundations of worry drawing down
     his face, free of makeup. The film that covered his eyes and was ruining his vision seemed thicker today. His eyes were murky,
     filled with poison, like the Nile. Ipiankhu prostrated himself.
    “Rise, my wise one,” Pharaoh commanded. “I have dreamed!”
    As happened every time he interpreted a dream, Ipiankhu saw images flash in his head: His childhood and the arrogant dream
     of the sun, moon, and nine stars bowing to him. The beautiful mantle proclaiming him heir to his father’s herds, the same
     mantle ripped from his body by his half-brothers. The clammy, rodent-ridden chill of the well where he spent countless days
     and nights in sheer terror. His beautiful employer’s face changing from lust to hatred as though a sculptor were reshaping
     her features before Ipiankhu’s eyes. The haughty demeanor of the baker who had died. He felt a chill race through his blood,
     and in his heart he begged for assistance. “My Majesty, if it be the Unknown’s will, I shall interpret.”
    “I was in a desert. It was cold, not hot, even though Ra blazed down.” Senwosret licked his lips. “Before me the dunes and
     sands were losing their colors. An incense-thick gray fog surrounded me. Then all became darkness. Out of the darkness I heard
     an angry growl, the sound of a big cat in pain. Blazing fire engulfed me, and I saw the world in brilliance and a mountain
     cat with eyes like molten gold standing before me. He held a knife in his mouth.” Senwosret looked away. “Then I awoke.” The
     pharaoh chewed on his lip for a moment. “Could it be a sign to go to the temple of Bastet?”
    Ipiankhu sighed. He doubted the Unknown would send Pharaoh to worship a stone image. When would the man under Egypt’s double
     crown realize his gods were nothing? Ipiankhu wondered. Of course, Senwosret could not worship Ipiankhu’s god, not being of
     Ipiankhu’s tribe. His tribe … Ipiankhu pushed away his thoughts and focused on Pharaoh. “I must pray for the wisdom of the
     Unknown,” he said. “Only by his—”
    “Aye, I know,” Pharaoh interrupted. “Only he can see and tell you. You