They were on a boat together, Simon, Avrak Walker, and Morgan, venturing down the river Nile, searching for adventures. It wasn't a motorboat, though it did have an engine, but a small sailing one, which drifted idly with the current, as though it were in no haste to get where it was going.

  During the day, they sometimes fished for food. Most fish were released back into the water by Avrak, who used soft hooks on principle. The rest ended up as their dinner, which they cooked on a camping cooker on board, but only if they managed to conceal what they were doing from Morgan, who couldn't stand harm befalling even the smallest creature.

  During the night, sleeping was out of the question. In favour of telling each other stories in the darkness, they took several naps during the day, when the scenery on the riverside was anything less than spectacular.

  Simon could not imagine his stories having been particularly special. He had been only nine years old that time. It didn't matter, though, because there was always Avrak, their grandfather, who could come up with the most fantastic tales.

  Simon's favourite story was that of Atlantis, the long lost continent hidden beneath the sea, and its magnificent city, made for a king and his queen and situated at the top of a towering cliff, which protected it from attackers on all sides, except one. The inside. As Avrak's story went, Atlantis was flooded when the members of its own society, all of which were powerful, beautiful, but callous, turned against each other, causing a devastating war, with a most terrible battle, and a gigantic floodwave that took not only the city, but swallowed the whole of the continent.

  It was this tale of the unfortunate events in Atlantis that had kindled Simon's passion for archaeology. He was determined to find that legendary continent and the wealthy city, even if his grandfather didn't think much of the idea.

  Thousands of archaeologists had tried to find Atlantis, Avrak used to repeat in the same, tired old voice whenever his older grandson began about his elaborate plans, and none of them had ever succeeded.

  But Simon wasn't bothered: He was so sure of himself, with Morgan at his side as a support crew, that he didn't even spend time thinking about what he could or could not do, but plainly did whatever caught his fancy. Together, he and Morgan had dreamed about a future in which they would both be rich and famous, which was, after all, all that mattered in the end.

  They used to be brothers back then, more than brothers, until Simon discovered that their grandfather loved his cousin so much more than himself. It drove him mad, the endless competition with Morgan for the old man's constantly divided attention, and he loathed them both for it, though Avrak had always maintained that he loved them both just the same. For years, he tried to convince himself that their grandfather did indeed love them equally, but it was very difficult, seeing as how they always talked behind his back, shutting him out.

  It was also on that very boat that Simon first heard his grandfather say the words that had stuck with him ever since: When darkness falls, we don't just accept it. We fight.

  It was the fish, flopping around on their strings, struggling to get back into the water, attempting to jump out of the bucket once they were inside. Morgan had never much liked fishing. He was simply too kind, too afraid of hurting anybody or anything. If Avrak would have let him, he would have kept those fish as pets.

  “Why do they flop so much?” Simon could remember Morgan asking as he watched the fish in their grandfather's collecting bucket apprehensively, as though scared they were likely to bite him any second.

  “They're fighting for their lives,” Avrak said slowly, studying the boy thoughtfully, as he did so often, almost as though Morgan's gentleness surprised him. “Isn't it remarkable how they won't give up until their last moment? Even though we are so much bigger and stronger than them?”

  At that, the old man suddenly looked tired as he gazed at the two children before him. He released the fish from his bucket back into the water, watching as they darted away.

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  “When darkness falls, we don't just accept it,” Avrak said then, his voice heavy with emotion, “we fight. There will be a time you will have to join that battle, too, against the darkness that's coming for us, and you won't give up then either. It's in your blood. Both of you.”

  Simon woke with a start, his pyjamas drenched in sweat, his heart racing, Avrak Walker's word still resounding in his head … Why couldn't those stupid memories just leave him alone? He didn't want to remember anything he and Morgan had done together. It only made the contents of the last vision, his cousin's dreadful treachery, and the uncertainty whether it was true of false, so much worse.

  Irritably, he groped around for his glasses, found them, put them on lopsidedly, and slid out of bed, his thoughts still on the meaning of the mysterious message of his grandfather. As far as he could tell, the first part was merely an incentive to keep trying. Avrak had always said that quitters never won anything, and winners never quit anything. As for the rest of the message, he could only assume it had something to do with the first part, because neither he nor Morgan had ever expressed any desire to join the military, and where else than in war would they find a battle to fight?

  But Simon didn't want to think about Morgan or Avrak either way, so he focused his attention onto the room instead. It was nothing more than a chamber, through whose small window came the sounds of the settlement. A jumble of voices here, a stomping of iron boots and clatter of weaponry there, and the occasional, unpleasant, nauseating crack of a leather whip on skin.

  Simon shivered at the memory of the first time he had heard a whipping, yet again directing his thoughts into a new direction: Ever since he had (rather reluctantly) agreed to stay with Set, now two days ago, told the god about everything that happened (except the details of his passage from there to here), and found out that he had Seer's blood in turn, he had spent most of his days doing nothing but staring into a variety of jugs and bowls filled with water. Not to waste time, mind, but because this practice was supposed to open his mind for their real training later. This, however, it did not; instead, the endless hours spent silently gave a him a variety of childhood nightmares, in which he was forced to relive most of his and Morgan's past.

  Simon had been quite disappointed with this natural affinity for clairvoyance at first. He would have much rather had powers to control storms, call upon infernos, waves, or something equally impressive, but learned quickly that this was impossible.

  Set had explained impatiently and inexactly that not even the gods (who had their own kind of powers, such as wind-walk, which meant their superhuman strength, endurance and speed collectively, for instance) could control the elements. Although, he had added, there were some who could, to a certain extent, exert power over those natural forces such as winds and earthquakes. He hadn't been very specific about those, though.

  Another topic Set did not like to discuss were the chimaeras, though from what little Simon gathered from angry outbursts and impatient asides those beasts were summons from the Duat and could, like animals, be tamed to obey their master's will.

  They were still staying in Zawte, in the temple of Anubis around which the settlement had been built. And while the purpose of their prologued stay remained unclear (Set seemed to be waiting for something, but there was no indication what that could possibly be) Simon was getting more and more restless. He wanted to go home. Had he known they were planning to stay …

  He shook his head irascibly. There was nothing he could have done differently. Set wasn't even letting him out sight these days, and there were always some of the god's lackeys around even if the deity himself wasn't.

  Simon dressed quickly, his clothes having been freshly laundered by some of the priests of Anubis, but stopped halfway when his left elbow jammed painfully again: Over the last two days, the black rash had spread further up his shoulder and toward his neck, which felt slightly stiff, and covered most of the skin to his wrist. He pulled the sleeve back over it with a sigh. Except for the occasional rush of panic whenever he remembered it, and the fact that his arm often froze now and wouldn't move for several seconds, the rash wasn't too much of a hindrance. What was much worse was the fact that nobody, not even Set, had been able to tell him what the odd eruption of scales was, and it made him feel queasy and somewhat tainted, contaminated, as though there was something putrid slumbering inside of him.