“Simon!” came a panting voice from somewhere in front of him.

  Simon blinked again, and found Nefertari coming toward him from the edge of the square, her hood and hair flying, closely followed by Horus.

  “What are you doing? What are you looking at?” Nefertari demanded in an breathless, unnerved kind of voice.” Her amber eyes followed his gaze to the spot were the mysterious stranger had disappeared and at which he was still staring.

  Had they seen the man as well?

  “I thought –“ Simon gazed at the spot intently, as though willing the man to reappear. “No, it's nothing...”

  Horus' mismatched eyes narrowed suspiciously, but even the god seemed not to have noticed anything, for he looked away a moment later.

  “Well then come on,” Nefertari said briskly, turning back to the bustling square.

  Simon followed the others back to the well, but the vendors and their colourful goods had lost their attraction. He couldn’t help feeling a little more resentful than he already did toward Nefertari either. A moment longer and he would have been able to decipher the stranger's message. What if it had been something important, something needed to know?

  Horus was watching him closely again, too, but Simon wasn't in the mood for questions. He turned away, his brain working furiously. He was certain now that the other two hadn't noticed anything, or they would have surely questioned him about it, wanting to know what the stranger had said...

  But if Nefertari and Horus hadn't been able to see the apparition, did that mean he, Simon, was somehow special? Did that mean the message had been specifically for him? And if it were, what were its contents? And how would the man have found him? Who was the man? Where had he come from, where had he gone to? Wasn't it much more like that he had simply nicked away, fallen asleep in the sultry afternoon?

  Simon tried to recall what else had happened. He could remember the sudden darkness; the tranquillity of the scene; the feeling as though he were looking through some sort of energy field; the stranger's features, which he thought he had seen somewhere before; and shining hourglass, beating against his chest like an exterior heart.

  During the next hour, he kept checking the pendant when nobody was watching, but it showed no signs of any special powers, and it certainly wasn't glowing any more. There was no evidence whatsoever left that anything had happened, except for his own memory. Somehow, he didn't think this was as reliable, for in the lazy warmth of the day, his brain felt indolent, slothful, and rather spongy. Maybe he had imagined everything after all, he thought to himself, and nobody contradicted him.

  And still they were sitting idly around the well, observing as the township swarmed with activity around them. At some point, Nefertari left for several minutes and came back with handfuls of bread and fish for dinner, then they resumed sitting in silence, waiting for Simon did not know what.

  It became evident when, several hours later, a young man ran down the street, shouting animatedly. Within seconds, the well cleared, the traders on the square packed up their belongings, and the inhabitants of the townships scampered away from the streets and back into their houses.

  Isn't it too early to be packing? thought Simon bemusedly. The sun was still high on the firmament, it couldn't be much later than late afternoon at best, still time for plenty of coin to be made...

  Within minutes, the marketplace and the well were deserted.

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  “We must be careful, now,” said Horus in an offhand tone that didn't quite convince anyone. The feigned nonchalance wasn't any more believable for the fact that Horus had stood up, drawn his weapon, and was watching the deserted streets of the township alertly. Neither did it help that Simon could see the god's knuckles sticking out starkly white where he held the glowing spear.

  “Why? What's happening?” Simon asked.

  “You'll see,” said Horus, still in that maddeningly casual tone.

  At the same moment, people began streaming out onto the road again, as though someone had opened the floodgates. The whole township was pouring out into the square, parents guiding their children, old people on crooks, men ushering their families into the street. All of them seemed to be wearing fresh clothes, their colours bright and clean. The townshipspeople lined up on either side of the road, forming a corridor in the middle, reminiscent of an aisle to a king's throne.

  Nefertari, who had stood at the first sign of action as well, beckoned them over to a narrow walkway in between two cottages where several boxes and crates were stacked against the wall. Swiftly, they crouched down behind the pile, peering out at the main road through the gaps in between.

  “What are we doing?” Simon tried again, kneeling down next to Nefertari. A cool draught was wafting through the aisle from behind, coming from the Nile river, rushing past mere feet behind their heels, which made him shiver in his thin shirt.

  “Any second now,” said Nefertari tensely.

  “Any second what?” hissed Simon. The tension in the air was setting his nerves on edge.

  “Be patient, human,” snarled Horus, his teeth grinding against each other.

  Simon, who had expected this attitude, had already formed a snide response, but before he could open his mouth, he was interrupted by a loud, rhythmic, banging noise. He froze, and so did the others, though their expressions were anything but fearful. Nefertari, her lips pressed into a tight line, was watching the road in front of them with a kind of furious anticipation, though her gaze flickered over her divine companion repeatedly. It wasn't hard to guess the reason. Horus was clutching his spear so tightly now that his nails had drawn blood on his palm, his fingers shining wetly with the golden liquid. The god's muscles were rigid and straining, too, and his whole posture completely rigid, as though he had literally frozen in place. He looked like the wrathful statue of a war deity.

  There was no time to contemplate this, however. Simon had just spotted the source of the banging noise, which was blaring through the windy alleyway from ahead, coming the midst of the corridor of people. The dark outline of something enormous and slow moving had appeared at the end of the main road, forcing the edges of the aisle further apart as it passed. In front of it, two red robed people were pummelling a set of snares.

  At the very same moment Simon had noticed the dark shape, the tingling in the nape of his neck returned as well. He whipped his head around fast enough to crick his neck, staring at the stream behind them, where everything was as it should be. Calm and quiet, the water's undisturbed surface was only interrupted by the gentlest of waves. Nothing moved on either side of the riverbed.

  “Mosquito,” Simon lied when Nefertari raised an eyebrow.

  He tried to be more discreet from then on, skimming the riverside with his eyes, unsure what he was looking for … Was he perhaps hoping for the unknown stranger to reappear? What was there to be gained from such an occurrence? He wasn't even certain he hadn't been dreaming that time...

  “There they come,” said Nefertari, and her voice was a low hiss.

  For a moment, Simon thought the supposed-Pharaoh had seen the mysterious man as well. He whipped his head around to the front, where the citizens of Zawte were craning their necks to get a better view of something coming through their midst. Nefertari's gaze was swivelling over the onlookers, scanning the corridor they had formed with her eyes.

  Simon craned his neck too, and saw two gigantic black horses coming down the road, each of them carrying a man, or at least a figure that looked like a man, in a red and black uniform and a balaclava. Where their hands protruded from the clothing, their skin was greenish and scaly, a pond strewn with algae that left Simon in no doubt of the nature of those creatures.

  “That's the General's guard,” whispered Nefertari at that moment, drawing his attention.

  The crowd began chanting, a single word repeated time and time again, shouted into the darkening sky, but the voices were too indistinct to distinguish the meaning...