Goddess of Alexandria

The oldest mystery of the ancient world—one sought by kings and scholars alike—remains the secret of immortality.

When Heron returns to Alexandria, she finds the High Priest of Sobek, Lysimachus, has wrested control of the great city of Alexandria from the nobles by demonstrating his mastery over death. Alone and in a city arrayed against her, Heron must find allies, rescue Sepharia from the clutches of the crocodile cult, and somehow find a way to overthrow Lysimachus from his iron-clad control of the city, otherwise she'll lose her beloved City of Wonders for eternity.

Chapter One
Night descended on the city of Alexandria, the molten iron of the sky fading to cold steel. Above the stone walls, towers thrust themselves against the dusk like spears from a returning army, though none reached higher than the Lighthouse of Pharos, its burning eye warding north.
Heron pulled the dark green robe around her body, feeling for the first time in over a year, substantial, rather than a ghost of a person. With a tilt of her neck, she flicked the stunted ponytail out from under the collar of the robe to keep it from tickling the back of her neck, while fingering the pugion, the spring-loaded knife that she kept in her sleeve for protection, a feeble weapon against whatever trials lay ahead.
"It's a wonder," said a pilgrim on her right in broken Greek while knocking the dust from his tunic.
Some of the pilgrims she'd arrived with in Alexandria had marched on ahead, to make the city walls before light had fled the sky, but others, like her, had stopped to admire the colors of the sunset hardening into night.
"It's the City of Wonders, a place of thought made action, a place like no other in the world," she said.
"I meant, it's a wonder that the Terrors haven't torn it down," said the man, nodding towards the Lighthouse.
Heron grabbed the man's arm, his earthy musk hitting her up close. "Terrors? What do you mean? Have you been inside the city? What's changed?"
The man, who had the body of a worker, broad shoulders and thick hands, yanked his arm from her grip and opened his mouth to rebuke her, when his eyes widened as he realized to whom he was speaking.
He backed away in jerky steps, catching a crack of dirt with his heel and stumbling. The man made a simple warding sign, two crossed fingers striking downward, and hurried to join the clump of pilgrims ahead, checking to make sure she wasn't following as he ran.
Heron rubbed her neck as she examined herself. The pilgrim hadn't recoiled from the sight of her face. He'd been looking at her robes.
"Terrors," she muttered, not daring to speculate what that might mean. It didn't matter. She'd returned to find Sepharia and flee to some other place. Maybe they could join a caravan and return to Sakrur, and enjoy the generosity of Queen Rembara. Sepharia would like the Queen.
Rather than hurry to join the others, Heron took a deliberate pace. It would put her at Pompey's Gate, the southwestern entrance into the Rhakotis District, after sun down, which would make it easier to blend into the crowd.
Once inside the city, she would make her way to her workshop. If her friends, or Sepharia, had survived, they would be waiting there.
The road took her around Lake Mareotis and into the slum city that leached onto the western wall of the city. The shantytown spilled further west along the dusty hard pack, bloated by refugees from the destruction of Rome.
Heron kept her head down as she passed the colorful tents of Thracian mercenaries. Their cooking fires delighted her nose and made her stomach gurgle in protest, and their laughing speech made her miss the company of others, for she had spent much of the winter secluded and before that, locked in a cage on the iron boat, Petsuchos.
Rather than make her way down the main road that the Alexandrian guards kept clear for trade and soldiers, Heron cut through the hidden, torturous paths that passed through the tent city. She wanted to avoid being noticed and catch the mood of the people.
Picking through the makeshift living quarters, thatched lean-tos, and mercenary pavilions, she heard a thousand native tongues filling the air: Greek, Roman, Persian, Thracian, Ethiopian, Sardian, Sindh, Ionia, Indus, and so on, until the babble became a steady hum in her ear.
In a shadowy space between fires, Heron came upon an Egyptian child poking at a hole with a stick. The dark-haired youth looked up at her with a gap-toothed smile.
"Greetings, child," she said, preparing to step over the hole and past the tent pegs that blocked her way.
Lantern light flooded into the space, making shadows march across the canvas tents, until Heron had to hold her good arm up to see.
"Get out of here!" growled a man in Egyptian.
He slammed his hilt against his scabbard in warning.
Squinting into the light, Heron replied in his language, "Apologies, just passing through."
The Egyptian man stepped forward and grabbed Heron's arm, squeezing hard enough to bruise. Heron fumbled for the pugion, hidden inside her robe sleeve, but his grasp made reaching it difficult.
He scowled and the muscles in his neck and jaw bulged. His breath stunk like rotten meat.
"I'll teach you to mess with my son, witch," said the man.
Heron reached out to push him away with her stump. When the rounded end of her wrist stuck from the hem of the robe, the Egyptian man recoiled backwards, releasing her arm and tripped over the tent ropes to fall on his rear, somehow keeping the lantern from smacking into the hard earth.
Sitting on his backside, his eyes widened as he stared at her robe. Heron looked down, too, thinking she would see something fantastical blazoned on her chest, like a glowing ankh, but she saw nothing new.
Clambering to his feet, the Egyptian man yanked his son away eliciting cries from the child, and made a grave glance towards the city before yelling to his compatriots.
Heron pulled up the hem of her robe and fled through the dark spaces between the tents, hoping over ropes and latrine ditches in the dark.
A few hurried shouts followed her for a short time, but quickly fell back into the darkness. When she was certain no one was following, she slowed her pace, so she didn't injure herself, and spent the time contemplating the meaning of the man's reaction, especially the inexplicable glance into the sky above the city. Was he looking to the Lighthouse of Pharos for guidance?
When Heron came upon Pompey's Gate, her thoughts froze and she searched around, thinking she'd come upon the wrong entrance of the city. Then she remembered there'd never been a massive metal statue at any of the city's gates.
Gargantuan legs straddled the entrance, the crotch of the metal warrior higher than the wall. The lower half of the statue reflected golden light as bonfires burned in braziers. The upper half lay hidden in darkness, which explained why she'd not seen it upon approach.
Heron craned her head backwards to ascertain the identity of the statue. Her trembling heart seized the breath from her lungs as she saw the long snout protruding from the head of the statue.
Choking on her memories, Heron couldn't breathe and placed her fingertips against her lips. Two years ago. Two years ago, she'd instructed her workshop to create the statue of Ammon for Queen Amanitore of the Kushites as payment for their support against the Roman Empire. She'd developed a process that used the ghost fire jars to plate gold onto the statue's skin.
During the battles with Rome, and subsequent ruling of the city, she'd forgotten about this task.
In those busy years, the statue had been completed, but much to her dismay, had never been sent to the lands of Kush. Worse still, the head of Ammon had been replaced with Sobek, who leered over the slums outside the city.
The Egyptian man's glance into the sky became clear. He looked to the Colossus of Sobek. If she had any doubts about who controlled the city, they were erased by the transformation of the statue.
Rather than head to the gate, Heron stayed in the shadows and watched the traffic. Alexandrian guards in their stamped leather breastplates and wielding gladii at their sides spoke to everyone, coming or going. They wore curious helms with the fronts molded into a shape that hinted at primal forces.
When a caravan wagon rumbled to the gate, pulled by a pair of roan horses, the guards spoke to the driver at length. He appeared to be Kushite and he argued with the guard before handing over a few coins. When they were done, one guard held the reins of the lead horse while the other examined the goods under the tarp. Satisfied, they sent the caravan into the city.
Heron checked her funds for bribes. She still had the coins she'd found in the temple along the river, but she shoved them back into her pouch.
She wasn't ready to give them up yet, even if it meant easy passage. She might need those coins to find Sepharia, or to flee the city once she'd found her. As much as it pained her to admit it, she'd only come back to rescue her daughter and then leave for calmer shores.
She waited until a group of men with fishing gear arrived at the gate to make her attempt to enter. The poorer folks in the Rhakotis District often relied on Lake Mareotis or the sea for their regular meals. Fish bit hard at dusk, but once night fell, the fishermen would return. They carried nets and wooden pails, stinking of fish.
Heron hurried to join the rear of the group, keeping her shoulders hunched and her head down. As the fishermen passed, shifting the tangled nets on their shoulders, the guards nodded them inward, the nightly ritual apparent by their familiarity.
The fisherman in front of Heron was tall with a loping gait. She positioned herself directly behind him, staring at his dirty heels, the filth earned on the muddy banks of Lake Mareotis.
Another dozen steps and she'd be inside the gate, one step closer to Sepharia. Her chest grew as tight as the Gordian knot.
As Heron passed the guard, he nodded, as he had for the fishermen and relief flooded into her limbs.
"Halt, priest," said the guard, not two steps further.
Heron stopped. The fishermen kept going into the city, leaving her alone. The gulf between her and the comforting crowds ahead seemed immense, like a yawning pit.
"Come here, priest," called the guard.
The act of hobbling in a forward motion had become smoother by time. Heron was used to the complexities of walking with a wooden leg, assuming she could point in one direction and move that way. Turning, however, was maddeningly complex with little side step movements, and always catching the end of the wooden stump, threatening to tip her sideways.
She felt like a horse trying to rotate in a small circle as she turned to the guard. He hooked his thumbs into the top of his leather waist guards, and tilted his head at her, reviewing her from wooden leg, to pink stump, to shoulder length feminine hair.
Like a coin spinning, her gut churned with worry. She swallowed and tried to smile, but it came out as a pained grimace, especially when she realized the helm was in the shape of a crocodile's mouth.
"I've never had a blessing from a woman Terror," he said, winking at his fellow guard. "Only seen a few of you, but never through our gate. Seems our large metal friend keeps the peace for you folks."
Heron looked back through the gate. A caravan waited to enter, its horses stamping and neighing, the driver craning his head to see what was holding up the line.
When she didn't answer and stared back with what she hoped was annoyance, the guard's joking smile faded until his lips thinned to white. Then he jerked his head towards the city.
Rather than make her wobbling rotation, Heron strode forward and circled around, forgoing the awkwardness. Once she'd fallen into the crowds moving through the streets, she contemplated the meaning of the exchange.
Who were these Terrors? Were they priests of Sobek? It would only make sense, as Lysimachus had named his god, He Who Dwelleth Amid Terrors.
She contemplated what it meant for the city that it'd fallen under the sway of the priesthood. How had the nobles allowed this influence? Once she'd found Sepharia, she would send inquiries to the Palace, to learn more from Polyxena.
Heron paused in the street and a Thracian trader in dirty leathers bumped into her. He mumbled a curse as he moved past, and Heron stepped to the side, huddling against a clay-brick warehouse that smelled faintly of musty wheat stores.
She'd forgotten about Agog's wife, the Macedonian woman who'd come to them four years back. How had the news of Agog's death affected her? Heron grabbed the front of her robe in mute anger. Though Polyxena had not married Agog for love, theirs was primarily a political alliance, it was another reminder of what the destruction of the Empire had wrought.
As Heron resumed her march through the streets, she pointed herself towards Canopic Street, the avenue that split the city in half, entering and leaving through the Moon and Canopic gates respectively. She didn't want to head directly towards her workshop, in case Lysimachus had spies lurking.
A pack of young boys in loincloths ran past, screaming and laughing, while dodging through the unexpectedly busy evening crowd. They seemed to be playing a game, and in their haste, one boy knocked a basket of hard breads from the hands of a stooped old woman in a soot-smudged stola.
The woman's wrinkled face soured into a scowl as she collected her fallen bread, dropping the round loaves back into the misshapen reed basket.
While Heron watched the woman collect her bread, the last boy ran past and the nature of the game became clear. The boy wore a scaly green mask with a long snout.
How could her city have changed so much in two years? First the statue, then the mention of Terrors, and now boys playing games with Sobek as their inspiration? How had the crocodile priest turned the soul of the city so quickly?
Heron hurried forward, stabbing her wooden leg into the dirt, as a heat rose in her chest. When the wind shifted, bringing with it not the crisp sea air, but of burning, her mouth opened in alarm. All around her she turned, but no one shared her concern.
Was fire not the greatest enemy of the city that housed the Great Library? And what she smelled was no simple bonfire. She could taste the flaky papyrus burning in some quantity. What sickness had befallen them?
Huddled against the fountain of Bast, Heron truly watched her fellow Alexandrians for the first time since she'd returned. Gazes burrowed into the ground, while shoulders hunched and brows tensed. The hurried sense of industry had been sapped from their limbs. They seemed more prisoners on a long march rather than inhabitants of the City of Wonders.
Even when she'd been drowning in debts, Heron had carried pride for the city on the crown of her head like a halo. The automatas that adorned street corners provided inspiration for thoughtful scholars and humble workers alike.
Behind her, the once active statue of Bast in her four forms lay dormant. The faces had been chipped by edged weapons and the water had been drained from the fountain. The hand of the Egyptian cat god had been snapped off. Even though the creation had been a design of Philo's, stolen from her workshop, its misuse made her jaw hurt.
A trumpet blast startled Heron. It came from the direction of Canopic street, the direction the crowds moved. To the east lay her workshop, but whatever was happening on the main avenue of Alexandria seemed more important.
Heron rejoined the crowd that grew denser the closer she got to Canopic street. Elbows jostled against her side as they packed together.
Braziers filled with greasy fires lit the wide avenue that housed the richest merchants. Marble buildings glowed with flickering light as shadows danced across their fronts.
Alexandrian guards kept the center of the street empty, except for a bald priest in greenish robes that meandered down the middle. But the crowd was not looking at the priest. They faced west and as she turned, the thump of the echoing drums kissed against the soft flesh of her neck.
A steam barge with wheels as tall as a soldier rumbled from the west. The brass shielding on the front displayed the horrible open mouth of a crocodile. A half-dozen priests in dark green robes encircled some poor soul held to the platform by chains. The crowd watched with muted interest.
Heron had been forced to attend an execution before, but the crowd had been elated, screaming epithets at the top of their lungs and throwing rotten vegetables as the prisoner went past. While certain rituals of a public execution were being observed - the dutiful priests, the gathered crowds, the long procession reminding the innocent the importance of adhering to stated laws - the feel of it was all wrong.
The crowd seemed maudlin to the extreme, much as if they attended their own funeral. But it wasn't quite that either. The people in the crowd were practically bored.
Rather than stay and watch the steam barge meander past, Heron moved back one street and then headed east. She had to go as far as Transversal Avenue, which was the other major cross street in Alexandria to reach the epicenter of the gathering.
By the time she reached her destination, she was covered in a light sweat, which made her robes itchy. The assembled spilled into the secondary streets at the massive cross street between Canopic and Transversal, which hosted festivals regularly throughout the year.
At the center of everyone's attention was a raised platform on what appeared to be a pyramid with the top cut off. Alexandrian guards ringed the pyramid and a few priests milled about the platform, gathered around a headsman's block, which was a heavy wooden stump with axe scars in the center.
Heron pushed through the crowd to get closer, but she didn't make it far before her way was blocked. She tried in other locations, but each time, the crowd grew so dense that she couldn't pass.
The drums of the approaching steam barge grew near and she was covered in a damp sweat. Heron tried pushing ahead, but a noxiously perfumed merchant in silks elbowed her back.
She hung her head in frustration. She needed to get up front to see what was happening. Why would everyone in the city, and it certainly felt like everyone in the city, given the heat rising from their pressed bodies, leave the cool confines of their brick homes to witness an execution so joylessly?
Staring at the fabric of her green robe, Heron remembered the reaction of the pilgrim on the way to Alexandria. She shook her head, hating to rely on its symbolic nature, but having no time for other actions.
In what she hoped was an authoritative tone, Heron boomed out her voice, "By He Who Dwelleth Amid Terrors, let me pass!"
The perfumed merchant's wide-eyed realization of who he'd just struck with an elbow blanched his face bone-white.
"Apologies, priest," he muttered and vacated the space she'd wanted to move through.
While the rest of the nearby crowd's reaction wasn't as overt, the invoking of Sobek's name drew the desired effect. Like a river around a boulder, the crowd parted and she strode ahead, keeping her pink stump in plain view.
She made it to the front of the crowd, having to use Sobek's name twice more, but most seemed to sense her presence and faded away from her. The powerful reaction was eerie and Heron quickly realized, could be quite addictive.
When she made the street, an Alexandrian soldier in leather breastplate and gladius moved to help her past the barrier, but she shook him off. The soldier nodded and moved on, continuing his circuit around the half-pyramid.
The approaching drums set a rhythm for her heart and nearing the end, both sped up. The steam barge rolled inexorably towards the execution platform under the watchful eye of the Lighthouse of Pharos.
The empty sky was a funnel that seem to focus the city's attention down to this point. If Heron had believed in the gods, she would have expected they were standing behind the curtain of the stars to watch.
When the steam barge rolled into place, shuttering momentarily as it kissed against the half-pyramid, Heron had a sudden terrible premonition about the identity of the prisoner.
The priests of Sobek in their dark green robes marched towards the pyramid, the woman - Heron caught glimpse of long blonde tresses - in a pure white stola followed along as if she were a queen as much as a prisoner. The wall of priests blocked her view until the woman stepped upon the ramp that led to the execution platform.
Sepharia! She was alive!
Heron had to resist with every inch of her being not to rush onto the pyramid and close her arms around Sepharia, smelling the sweetness of her hair.
Lightness filled Heron's limbs at the knowledge that her hopes had not been dashed upon the rocks. That Sepharia had not been lost in Rome.
Her daughter glowed with radiance, like the Goddess Diana, her skin seemingly bathed in milk. Sepharia held her chin high, and when she reached the summit, a man dressed in the ceremonial attire of the god Sobek took her hand.
The crowd made a hushed intake of breath on the appearance of the man-god. His brown arms flexed beneath the mask that covered his head down to his shoulders. The long green snout was benevolent and wise, not at all the horrible opening stinking of rotten meat and containing bits of old flesh caught between the teeth like she remembered when Petsuchos had crawled upon the stone altar in the temple of reeds.
Sobek carried a golden ankh and wore a beaded loincloth of sea stones and coral. Heron knew it was not Lysimachus beneath the mask, because Sobek had two hands and his skin was the golden mocha of an Egyptian.
Sepharia was led to a place before the scarred stump. She gazed at the crowd in a clear and direct manner, sweeping across the many upturned faces in a graceful review.
The man who was Sobek strode to the front of the platform and stamped his ankh staff downward, the impact booming across the crowd like thunder, silencing the murmuring like an axe strike.
"Faithful Alexandrians!" he called out, his voice echoing against the marble buildings. His tone carried the weight of a monument.
"Nine times I have brought you here to witness the powers of Sobek! Nine times you have seen the miracle from my hand. Today marks the Tenth! Do not be afraid, for Sobek controls the waters of creation, and anything is possible with him."
The man-god Sobek wandered around the edge of the platform. Heron couldn't keep her eyes off him. Her mind reverberated with the words waters of creation in remembrance of her dreams on the Jörmungandr.
"Again, I bring you my daughter to prove the depth of my sacrifice!"
Shouts erupted from the crowd, calling out a name Heron couldn't quite hear. She turned this way and that, trying to catch the shape of the names, but the praise-givers trampled over each other in their enthusiasm.
Finally, not far behind her, a man shouted, "Heron!" and she spun around expecting to see Lysimachus or an Alexandrian soldier advancing on her.
Instead, a simple worker in a pale gray tunic raised his hand to the heavens. He was looking not at her, but at the man-god Sobek upon the platform.
A wave of dizziness passed through her and she stumbled against the woman on her right.
As if wax had been pulled from her ears, she could hear their shouts clearly. They yelled, "Sobek" and "Heron" and "Michanikos". Heron even heard "shapeshifter" called out once.
They thought it was she upon the stage beneath that mask. Was it not apparent that it was not her? How could they believe such lies?
Her heart answered right away with damning precision: it was you who taught them to believe such untruths with your miracles.
The realization shed light on the mystery of why the city had allowed the priests to come to power. Heron placed trembling fingers to her lips.
When the cries of "Sacrifice her!" rose up like dark wings, Heron refocused on the half-pyramid platform. The robed priests formed a circle around the edge. Sepharia was bent over the scarred stump without restraints. From Heron's vantage point, she could see the back of her daughter's calves and the way she held onto the wide rim of the base.
The man-god Sobek, the horrifying perversion of Heron's legacy, took position at the head of the block, holding his ankh staff high like a banner. He lifted it above his head with both hands, and gave it a violent shake, and the ankh transformed itself into an axe head.
Heron heard the words spring from her lips, crying out in defense of her daughter, as the man-god Sobek brought the axe down in a sweeping arc.
"Sepharia!" cried Heron, her voice rising feebly to stop the blade.
The axe bit into the stump, separating Sepharia's head in one, brutal strike. As the robed priests rushed to form a circle around Sepharia's lifeless body, the god Sobek reached down and lifted the head high to display it to the crowd, eliciting a sickening cheer.