Chapter 43

Downstream of the Tigris River, not far from the city of Assur, Ali helped Isis dismount and wrapped a thick cloak tightly around the Queen to protect her delicate skin from the biting river wind.

"The current is indeed fierce," Isis murmured as she skirted her hem and climbed down the rocks, placing one foot on the riverbank pebbles. She looked back at the rushing rapids. "General Nactar has sent no further news. I wonder if Memphis is all right?"

Ali was burning with anxiety. After Carol was attacked by a lion, Ali had returned in high spirits to Lower Egypt to report to Queen Isis. She had also heard General Nactar mention the bold remarks made by the female slave belonging to Prince Izmir whom the Queen had captured. Ali had assumed the Queen took those words to heart, yet she never expected that King Memphis would still be entirely consumed with worry over Carol's life and death, failing to cast a single glance back at the Queen.

Instead, the Queen had fallen uncharacteristically silent, allowing King Memphis to have his way. This compelled them to bide their time in Lower Egypt and temporarily shelve all other plans.

Originally, Argan had captured Memphis and sent messengers to inform the Queen, advising her to feign ignorance while seizing the opportunity to control the country. Yet while Queen Isis had seemingly reached an agreement with him in public, in private she traveled light toward Assur, simultaneously ordering General Nactar to mass troops on the Syrian border, awaiting her command at any moment.

"Queen Isis," Ali pleaded anxiously, "this place is far too dangerous. We cannot linger. If we encounter remnants of the defeated Assyrian army or foreign troops, the consequences will be unimaginable!"

Yet Isis stared blankly at the surging river. "Ali, you don't understand. No matter what, I am the daughter of the late King. I can engage in a battle for supremacy with Memphis where the winner takes all, but I cannot stand idly by and let foreign nations harbor malicious intentions toward him. However..."

"Perhaps Carol truly enjoys divine favor," a mist flickered across Isis's eyes. "She actually managed to alter the course of the Tigris River. Aside from divine power, no mortal could achieve this. Could it be that our repeated failures to eliminate her are truly the will of the gods?"

Ali had watched Isis grow up; Isis was her sole master. If Memphis were not Isis's younger brother and future husband, then even as the King of Egypt, he would not be worth a fraction of Isis in Ali's eyes.

She urged desperately, "My Queen, you should seize the opportunity while King Memphis is away to usurp power in one fell swoop! As long as King Memphis... loses his influence, Carol will naturally become a nobody. Her dreams of being the Queen of Egypt can go to waste!"

Isis only chuckled softly, as though entirely free of worries, or perhaps utterly helpless. "Ali, how could you understand? Father left behind a contingency plan long ago. There have only ever been two choices placed before me: marry Memphis, or... lose everything. Autumn has passed, and all harvested grain has already been transported to the granaries of Upper Egypt. The border-guard troops in Lower Egypt are less than a tenth of those in the upper region, and a large portion of them take direct orders from Memphis. My personal guards are at best equivalent in number to the garrison of Thebes. What do I have to fight Upper Egypt head-on?"

The usually lofty Queen lowered her gaze. "The person Father intended all along was Memphis, but he did not live to see our marriage. Once Memphis became unwilling to marry me, even if I were married off to a distant foreign land, I could not threaten the stability of Egypt. Even if my heart truly wavered, I would likely have to wait until next year when the horses are fat and the granaries full, by which time everything would already be settled. Do not forget, Upper Egypt still has Imhotep and Kaputa. They will not sit idly by and watch me ascend the throne of the Pharaoh. Truth be told, they possess the strength to contend for it as well. Ali, I lost my chance long ago, only because my heart refused to obey."

Listening to these words, Ali knew how deeply Queen Isis was suffering. The only methods Isis had ever been able to employ were assassinations, simply because she lacked the power to openly threaten others. Had she possessed even a shred of dependable strength, she would not have been so relentlessly suppressed. King Neferuptah's actions were driven by consideration for Egypt, yet how fickle is the heart of man in this world, leaving her noble Queen without even the slightest room to struggle.

Tears fell from the loyal maid's eyes. "And yet you still brave this danger to save him?"

"It seems unnecessary now," Isis replied in a flat tone, though she could not conceal her heartache. "He has a clever and beautiful maiden by his side. But regardless of everything, we are true brother and sister. As long as he does not push matters to the absolute limit, we must always jointly uphold Egypt's interests. Ali, once General Nactar's scouts confirm that Memphis is safe, we will set off back for Lower Egypt. Even if we cannot be husband and wife, the ties of blood can never be severed. If we enter the realm of eternal life hereafter, both of us standing before the scales of truth and justice, let the god Anubis judge us, measuring our hearts with a single feather of the goddess Maat—then Memphis will know my true and sincere heart. But in the present reality, he will never understand!"

Just as a cluster of bushes blocked Isis's path, prompting her to decide to retrace her steps, her slipper—embroidered with gold thread, turquoise, and ostrich feathers at the pointed toe—stepped onto something soft beneath the brush. Believing it to be a snake, Isis was thoroughly startled.

Fulfilling her duty diligently, Ali rushed forward to part the bushes, discovering that beneath the thick vegetation was not a snake, but a face-down man. He looked like a refugee washed downstream by the flood; though his loincloth remained in place, it was completely soaked through, leaving his body entirely bare.

Queen Isis had stepped squarely upon his buttocks, leaving a clear and rather comical shoe print stamped upon his lean and supple right cheek.

Seeming to have been rudely awakened by the heavy step, Saru slowly stirred because of the sharp pain in his backside. The daylight made it difficult for him to keep his eyes open, while Ali brandished a small personal dagger to shield the Queen, the blade gleaming with murderous intent.

Saru could not see anything clearly, yet he could make out the full breasts wrapped in a luxurious black sheer gown and hoisted high by a golden serpent belt, prompting him to mutter as if caught in a pleasant dream, "Ah, am I dreaming? To think there's a big-breasted beauty!"

Furious, Ali drew her dagger and stepped forward. "Insolent wretch! How dare you show disrespect to Queen Isis!"

Isis pressed down on Ali's hand and kicked Saru over onto his back. The man possessed a brownish-black complexion entirely distinct from that of the Egyptians—the deep tan of a sea-faring people—yet his entire body bore the pampered look of someone who had never known hardship. Isis narrowed her eyes in thought. Observing the man's fixed gaze upon her and his increasingly prominent arousal now that the loincloth was soaked, she said with disgust to Ali, "This man is likely a spy from another country who has infiltrated Assur. Have him dragged back and interrogated under torture; perhaps we won't even need to wait for the scouts to return."

Lacking even the strength to move, Saru was hoisted up by several burly Egyptian soldiers and hauled back to the Egyptian Queen's camp. By the time he fully regained consciousness, he realized he had fallen into the hands of the Egyptians, and that the phrase "Queen Isis" he had heard in his dream was apparently real. Had his hands not been bound, he would have stroked his chin in wonder: she truly was a peerless, gorgeous beauty!

When the whistling sound of a whip tearing through the air struck overhead, Saru surrendered his pride without hesitation, crying out for mercy and capitulating instantly: "I'll talk! I'll talk! I am a Phoenician spy! The Assyrians do business on too grand a scale, and my country has long been displeased with them!"

The interrogation proceeded with a smoothness that even Ali had not anticipated. Being a ruthless woman who occasionally conducted torture sessions herself, she had never before encountered a man who confessed voluntarily before the torture even began. As Ali escorted Isis back behind the curtains, her contempt for this spineless man was entirely unabated.

Saru's eyes greedily traced the slender, graceful silhouette of the beauty behind the curtain while he spilled every detail like beans pouring from a bamboo tube.

Listening to his account, Isis's brows furrowed increasingly tight until she finally blurted out, "You said Prince Izmir's personal female slave sneaked into the city of Assur mixed in with your caravan?"

"That's right," Saru replied, practically losing his mind and soul to that noble yet bewitching voice. How blissful it would be if she were to lie willingly in his bed and cry out in delight! "The three of us successfully avoided the floodwaters, but those Hittites crossed the river only to demolish the bridge afterward, throwing me right into the water!"

Hearing no trace of anger in his voice, as if this were an everyday occurrence, Isis remarked, "Who would have thought that the refined and graceful Prince Izmir is actually such a petty villain?"

"Business and statecraft operate on the exact same principle—it's merely a matter of who swindles whom," Saru chuckled dismissively. "It was my own fault for letting my guard down."

Unable to resist, Isis peered through a gap in the curtain at him. His hair was disheveled and his beard untamed, but his eyes were extraordinarily young and bright. Collecting herself, she said, "Judging by your account, that female slave by Prince Izmir's side, though audacious, is truly quite capable."

Unaware of the history between Isis and Inanna, but well aware of the animosity between Isis and Carol, Saru couldn't help offering a few extra words of gossip: "Indeed! She doesn't believe in divine power whatsoever. When speaking of the flood in Assur, she merely claimed that the Daughter of the Nile ordered Egyptian soldiers stationed outside the city to block the lower reaches of the river, causing the water to flow backward—she said it had nothing to do with the gods at all."

Isis abruptly stood up, exchanging a glance with Ali. Both understood the unspoken realization in each other's eyes: Carol indeed possessed no divine power; she was merely endowed with certain talents originating from the twentieth century. Yet in this world, she was not entirely invincible.

Having obtained what she wanted, Isis gracefully lifted the curtain and stepped out. Because of Saru's undisguised, blatant gaze, she held an ostrich-feather fan before her face and instructed the soldiers flatly, "Throw this man back into the river."

"Wait, wait!" Saru thought the beauty was truly formidable and hurriedly begged the Queen for mercy. "Respected Queen, I can buy back my own life with money. A thousand shekels of gold? Two thousand...?"

It wasn't until Saru raised the sum to five thousand that Isis finally nodded, albeit reluctantly and as a matter of great concession, sending word for Saru's associates to meet her in the Syrian Desert with the ransom money. When Saru's subordinates finally bought back their master with a wagonload of gold, the young man was utterly filthy and clad in nothing more than a tattered rag.

The old servant Sargon, former palace steward of Phoenicia, was practically shedding tears of old age: "My young master! The King and Queen have no children, and you are the primary heir by blood. I told you long ago not to go poking around gathering intelligence under the guise of a pimp, but you refused to listen. If something were to happen to you, what would become of Phoenicia?!"

"Then I'll just hurry up and father a son for you all!" Saru carelessly wrapped his long-nude body in a scrap of cloth. Astonishingly, he had no intention of returning home yet. Because Sargon had brought several extra wagons of treasure to ransom him, Saru rubbed his nose, his heart itching as he recalled Isis's alluring demeanor. "Let's go—we're heading to Egypt to propose marriage!"

Meanwhile, Inanna, who had once again caught Isis's attention, lay completely unconscious. Moreover, due to Izmir's reckless tossing and turning, Luka's prior efforts had been entirely undone, leaving her body burning with a fierce fever.

Even the seasoned veteran General Hazas found himself in a difficult predicament: "Your Highness, if Inanna continues like this, even if her life is saved, her mind will be scorched until she becomes a complete fool." He muttered the trailing words under his breath; he certainly didn't want an imbecile for a daughter-in-law!

Izmir's entourage maintained strict discipline and strictly prohibited drinking alcohol that might lead to mistakes. By now it was late evening, and strong liquor was nowhere to be found in the township of Amida. Luka was frantic with worry. "Wiping the body with strong liquor can rapidly lower body temperature in an emergency, but where are we to find strong liquor right now?"

General Hazas cast a helpless glance toward the Prince's cabin—a look tinged with unspoken reproach. Izmir felt a faint flush of embarrassment before hearing the old man mutter, "Could it be that we throw Inanna into the river? That would certainly bring the fever down quickly."

The problem was that she couldn't simply be thrown in like that, unless one wished to expedite her journey to the underworld. Watching Inanna struggle for breath with a face burning scarlet, Izmir replied indifferently, "I'll take her down. Let's hope it works."

With that, he stripped off his outer garment, wearing only a thin linen tunic, picked up the burning-hot Inanna, and descended the rope ladder into the water beneath the boat. Izmir waded slowly through the water, while Inanna's unconscious state added no extra burden to him. Had the person in his arms not been gravely ill, this moonlit aquatic excursion would have been an idyllic scene.

Izmir did not know that being brought into the Red River meant Inanna had been drawn into a dream.

Within the dream, her illness vanished and her body felt weightless. There was no need to walk; seven-colored mists swirled beneath her feet, carrying her to any corner of this chaotic, illusory realm. Before Inanna appeared a beaded curtain made of water droplets. She reached out to brush past them, the droplets gently sliding over her arm as they opened a doorway for her.

Inside sat a red-haired maiden of perhaps ten years of age. Childish and cute yet carrying a gloomy expression, she wore a trailing robe of a solid, unadorned hue that shimmered with water-like radiance.

Seeing Inanna gaze at the beaded water curtain, the girl said in a flat tone, "That is Marduk's water-bead curtain, the masterpiece of his mastery over water. Inanna, it has been a long time."

With those words, she turned back to her seashell throne, lifted her hand, and began operating an object before her. Inanna looked over with curiosity, realizing it was... a laptop computer?