Athena's Son (13 page)

He pointed to the back of the man’s head. “Probing into the brain is a risky operation, but Ajax was determined to regain his sight or die. I removed the skull fragment and the sight in his right eye was partially restored.”

Callimachus turned away from the sunlight and back to Archimedes. “He is too proud to accept charity or live off an army pension. I asked him to stay in Alexandria and protect something very precious to me—my students.”

Archimedes was watching Herophilos, who was back in the chest cavity examining the lungs.

“
He did his job well,” Archimedes said quietly. “He protected me from the scribe Ipuwer and his guards who wanted to drag me back to Ptahhotep. Ipuwer was so scared he dropped his wretched scroll.”

Callimachus smiled.

“
This is bit odd,” Herophilos said to himself. Both Archimedes and Callimachus turned to look. “His throat seems irritated, as if he suffocated. But I’m not sure if the blood I’m seeing is from an injury or the pneumatics demonstration I gave earlier.”

When the corpse first arrived at the school, Herophilos examined the man’s tongue. Usually when a healthy person died suddenly and there were no injuries, the obvious answer was poison. The best place to look for symptoms of poisoning was the victim’s tongue. Many poisons are corrosive or acidic and would cause bright red to black discoloration on the tongue. Other poisons cause inflammation of the tongue, while others leave an offensive odor, even detectable on a corpse.

“
At first I thought someone was poisoning these men. But there are no signs of poisoning in his mouth. There are no external bruises on the neck that would indicate choking,” Herophilos stated somberly. “There are no bruises anywhere.”

“
Why is his back a purple color?” Archimedes asked. “It looks like a large bruise.”

“
Good observation and inquiry, Archimedes, as a scientist always should,” Herophilos said as he tipped the corpse slightly to look at its back. “Blood gathers at the lowest part of the body upon death. It is discoloration from the blood pooling there. He must have been lying on his back when they found him at the lighthouse.”

“
Which is where I intend to go next,” Archimedes said. “After a good night’s sleep I’m going to the site of these murders and see if I can find any clues there.”

Chapter 18

In his dream, Archimedes was being chased by something quick and deadly. He didn’t see it; he just knew he had to run from it. It was terrifying how fast and formless it was.

Archimedes was dashing through the dark streets of Alexandria, yelling, tripping on cobblestones, but no one would help him. He turned a corner and was trapped in an alley. The monster hurtled into the alley, its chest splayed open like the worker in the autopsy. He thought it had a dog’s head, but it hissed like a cat. Archimedes looked around for a weapon and only saw rats scurrying away from the beast.

Was it Anubis? If it was a god, then he could call on his gods to save him. He grabbed for his owl amulet, but it wasn’t there. He picked up a rock and threw it. The beast hissed and thumped him on the chest.

Archimedes jumped up. He was sweating and it took several woozy seconds to realize it was just a dream. Hypnos had bounded off his chest and into the open window. The cat’s back was arched like a bow and the hair on its back was a jagged spine. It was hissing at something outside. Archimedes pulled back his damp cotton sheet and got up to look. He picked up Hypnos, set him down on the bed, and looked out the window.

The sea breeze felt cool on his face. He closed his eyes and smelled the salt and heard the palm leaves chafing in the wind. The dream seemed so real. All the talk about murders and Anubis was starting to get to him. He opened his eyes and scanned the school grounds.

Although the thin slice of moon did not give sufficient light to see much, he could make out the silhouette of one of the statues. It stood silent and dark against the pale night sky. But then the statue turned toward him and, smoldering like coals, its two large yellow eyes glared at him.

Chapter 19

Archimedes was staring into the eyes of a monster. At least to the Greeks it was a monster.

“
We Greeks call it a
sphinx
. For Egyptians it is the image of pharaoh,” Damokles said. It was the next morning and Archimedes had walked out to the work site to look for clues. He wasn’t sure how much of last night was a nightmare and what was real. But those two yellow eyes still pierced his soul and they seemed corporeal, not spiritual.

Damokles was one of the lead foremen hired by Ptolemy to make sure his lighthouse would get built. The granite sculpture he was describing was about eight feet long. It had the body of a lion and the head of Pharaoh Ptolemy. It was one of the many sculptures that would eventually adorn the lighthouse.

“
Sphinx, the strangler,” Archimedes answered. Greek tourists thought the Egyptian sculptures looked like the Greek monster known as the sphinx. Sphinx meant
to strangle.
It came from the mythological story of the sphinx who would strangle its victims if they could not answer a riddle.

“
I am not sure if I am looking for a strangler, a god, or a man,” Damokles said wearily. He was spending too much of his valuable time trying to track down a phantom murderer when his real talent was getting men to do their work. “We have brought out a hunter, some priests, and a general from Ptolemy’s army. Even some Roman ambassador was snooping around.”

“
Remus Decimus?” Archimedes asked.

“
I think that was his name,” Remus said.

Remus was out here? Now what is he up to? Archimedes remembered catching him spying in the library, dashing to the palace in Berenike’s chariot, and finding Remus already there.

The construction site was a bustling, noisy place. But it was done with the cadence and efficiency of the military. That made sense, because Damokles had been a platoon commander in the Macedonian army.

The large blocks of granite used for the base of the lighthouse were hauled by teams of men from the ships that delivered them. The steady tempo of their incessant chants kept the men in the same rhythm as they yanked on the thick hemp ropes. The ships would arrive at the Portus Magnus, the port to the east of where Archimedes arrived. The ships docked just to the south of the base of the lighthouse and the granite blocks were unloaded with a thud.

On the eastern shore of the island was an interim bonfire that workers stoked each night until Ptolemy’s lighthouse was completed. The pit, about 12 feet in diameter, was lined with limestone blocks. At this time of day the glowing embers only smoldered and spewed smoke that drifted lazily in the shifting shore breezes.

To the west of the stone workers were the artists and finish stonemasons. The stonemasons made sure the immense stones, some weighing 50 tons, were put into the proper location on the lighthouse. If a stone were even an inch off, that error would be compounded over the whole height of 400 feet, causing the colossal structure to lean and possibly tip over on its own weight. The artists worked with the stonemasons, being fine craftsmen themselves. That was where Archimedes was now.

Under a nearby linen tarp, two men were carving a massive 30 foot marble statue of Poseidon, while several others were working on a group of Nereids swimming around his feet. Nereids, Poseidon’s nymphs of the sea, took care of the sea’s rich bounties. The marble was streaks of green and blue, suggesting colors of the Mediterranean Sea. Three of the nymphs were offering up immense pearls, sculpted out of gleaming white marble.

The pearls, carved separately, must have been at least a foot across. Archimedes was impressed by the artistry required to make cold, white stone look like a luminous pearl.

“
That statue is going at the very top of the lighthouse,” Damokles said, and quickly added, “if we ever finish.” He pointed to four iron tubes, each about 10 feet long. “Those will hold the statue up above the flames. Ptolemy wanted the pillars to be bronze, but bronze isn’t strong enough. Iron is much stronger, but harder to get. Each tube is hollow and capped at one end. They’ll be filled with gypsum cement for added strength. Imagine, the god of the sea standing atop Hades searing furnace, but that’s what the pharaoh wanted.”

Damokles turned to Archimedes. “Ptolemy has been bringing in more and more of the Medjay from the city to patrol out here,” Damokles said with some disdain. “They haven’t stopped any murders but they are able to get in the way of my workers. And now, no disrespect young man,” Damokles chuckled, “the Pharaoh sends out a boy.”

Archimedes wasn’t sure if he should laugh along with the foreman, or cry. He always hoped he could come out to the famous lighthouse and see how it was built. But he never dreamed he would be here to help unravel a murder mystery. His talents lay in making machines and calculating numbers, not tracking down vengeful gods. He longed to be back at the museum with Berenike. He didn’t think her murder theory had any credibility; he just wanted to be near her.

Archimedes’ eyes were watering from the dust, smoke, and grit. Dust from the constant chipping of the stone sculptors, smoke from the signal fire, and grit from the huge granite stones, screeching as they were dragged across one another and put into place. The rumbling squeal of tons of granite scraping against granite sent chills down his spine.

Archimedes wiped the tears from his eyes. “What have you found out so far? I mean fact, not conjecture,” Archimedes asked. “Not rumors about Anubis. Not theology. What did the hunter or general say?”

Damokles looked more intently at Archimedes. Perhaps this young man wasn’t just an ordinary schoolboy. Damokles noted that Archimedes avoided allowing religion to get involved in the investigation. Reality is what this ex-soldier was most comfortable with.

“
Here are your facts,” Damokles said as he wiped sweat from his brow. “I’ve had 12 men killed. There are no wounds on the bodies. Each body was laid out on a stone block. And finally,” Damokles was reluctant to add this as fact, “there are usually large animal tracks nearby. The hunter thought they were from a dog. A large dog.” The boy wanted facts, so Damokles left out the hunter’s opinion on Anubis.

“
You said there
usually
were tracks. The tracks were not there with all 12 murders?”

“
Not that we noticed. They could have easily been wiped away with the thousands of feet and hundreds of carts that tramp through here each day.”

“
Where did you find the bodies?”

Damokles started walking and wiped more sweat with a rag. “There was no pattern; they were always near where they were working. Twelve murders in 12 different places. Just point,” Damokles’ arm rotated in several directions, “and you’ll be close to where we found one. The one constant is they were working alone, late in the evening.”

Damokles shook his head. “Look, I’ve got work to do. Those are the facts and now you know as much as I do. Now that you’re in charge of this, I can concentrate on getting this lighthouse built. Track me down if you need anything. Good luck, Archimedes.” Damokles was glad to get this off his hands and quickly started conferring with some men on a ramp that was being constructed.

Archimedes took inventory of the clues. Twelve bodies, no wounds, and animal tracks. But the bodies had already been prepared for the afterlife, the wounds never existed, and the dog tracks were trampled over. There was nothing here except nervous workers waiting for the next retribution of Anubis. The grit was grinding in his teeth and he spit to clear it from his mouth. He wasn’t sure where to start, but one thing he knew from his experience building machines: Don’t recreate the wheel, use it.

Archimedes began to walk around the base of the lighthouse. He was trying to get a grasp of the layout. Use the wheel. If these murders were by a god, it made no sense trying to find out how it was done. It just was.

If, however, the crimes were by a mortal, which they probably were, he wanted to study the only constant there was—the crime scene.

Pharos Island was long, almost 2 miles, but thin. On the east end, where the lighthouse was being built, Archimedes could have walked from shore to shore in less than 5 minutes. There were few trees or natural barriers to allow anyone to sneak up on someone.

He was standing near the spot where the latest victim was found. One of the immense blocks had been dragged across the sand, obliterating any prints from yesterday. Archimedes was watching a pair of the Medjay guards patrolling the area when he noticed a man hiding behind a copse of palm trees.

The man was also watching Archimedes, so he thought it might be Remus Decimus following him again. Archimedes began walking toward the man when he realized this man was larger than Remus and the sun sparkled off a breast plate. Archimedes started to jog toward the man, when he was suddenly stung on the back of his head.

He put his hand to the back of his head and looked back. He noticed a boy a couple years older than himself a stone’s throw away with a guilty look on his face. The boy was nonchalantly looking around.

Archimedes began walking back toward the man, who now turned and started to quickly walk away from Archimedes. Archimedes got no farther than a few more steps when he felt a sting on his shoulder. He turned around and the boy was now bent over laughing. Archimedes looked around as if he were confused about what was happening and turned to continue walking, but then spun around.