The Age of Ra

17. Airstrike

David was home.

Home wasn't his London pad. Pleasant and well furnished as that was, it served as a convenient place to live, nothing more.

Home was Courtdene, the family estate on the Sussex Downs, the flint-and-brick manor house with its walled gardens and its long, valley-hemmed views of the Channel, the sheep-cropped fields, the oak copses and hawthorn thickets, the wide expanses of grassland that were treelessly bleak and bare, the curving driveway, the main gates capped with sphinxes, the pyramid folly which Archibald Westwynter commissioned to be built the day after he bought the property, the lake with its replica Solar Barque dinghies and small overgrown island, this secure and private world where nothing intruded from the outside that wasn't permitted by the family within.

Home was always the place where life was at its simplest.

David strode up to the front door, pausing to glance up at the family cartouche that was carved into the lintel. It was the best kind, a compact, logogrammatic one. You could spell out any name in the uniliteral manner and get a string of simple demotic hieroglyphs, but that was little better than an alphabetical substitution code and looked ungainly. For real class, you paid the priesthood a small fortune — the current asking price was €50,000 — and had your surname translated officially into hieratic logograms. The cartouche for Westwynter consisted, logically enough, of the logograms for west (a bird crown and a sun setting over hills) and winter (four assorted geometric shapes), arranged one above the other and enclosed in a box.

David had always thought of a cartouche as a sign of vanity, but a necessary one. No family that was held in high regard could do without.

He passed under it and entered the house.

The hallway was empty. A clock ticked. Dust motes hung in a shaft of sunlight, swirled by a draught. He smelled the familiar musk of waxed floorboards, mixed with the hint of damp which hung around the draughty old building constantly, even in high summer.

No one.

He was home from war. He had a right to expect some kind of reception, a welcoming committee. Didn't he? He had been away for weeks. He was presumed dead. Why wasn't anyone waiting in the hallway to greet him, rejoicing? His mother at least, even if his father had chosen to disown him.

''Hello?''

Echoes echoed echoingly. No answer.

''Mum? Dad?''

Nothing.

''Jepps? Mrs Plomley?''

Silence.

He searched the ground floor: all the drawing rooms, the library, the dining room, the billiard-room, kitchen, scullery, pantry. Everything exactly as it should be, spotlessly tidy. Not a soul to be seen.

He went upstairs. He tried Steven's bedroom, then his own. The beds were tightly made, sheets turned down, awaiting occupancy. Finally he approached his parents' bedroom at the far end of the corridor.

The door was ajar. He nudged it open.

His mother and father lay in bed together, naked, entwined, locked in a fervent kiss. Jack Westwynter was kneading Cleo Westwynter's breast. Cleo Westwynter's hand was under the covers, working away at Jack Westwynter's crotch.

David stood and stared. He wanted to back away, pull the door to behind him, steal off down the corridor before his parents realised he was there. But he couldn't move. He was paralysed with embarrassment… and fascination.

Nobody in their right mind wanted to see their parents making love, or even to think about it.

But then, as David had realised, these weren't actually his parents.

Around their heads golden auras glowed, and each aura had a distinct shape. His father's was a double- plumed mitre, his mother's a weird blend of vulture and throne.

Dreaming.

David continued to watch as his father's hand moved down his mother's body, sliding over her belly and beneath the bedcovers to stroke between her legs. His mother, Isis, moaned. His father, Osiris, grunted softly and stroked harder.

Then, as if on some unspoken cue, the two of them calmly turned their heads and looked round to where David stood. They smiled. They kept their hands on each other's genitals, rubbing, caressing, but their gazes were focused on David. Their expressions were kindly but stern.

''Why are you doing this, son?'' his father asked.

''Why are you helping your brother?'' his mother asked.

''Because…''

He was dreaming.

''Because he needs me. And because he's right. I really think he is.''

''We're your parents,'' said Osiris. ''We watch over you. We care for you.''

''Don't you think this is hurting us,'' said Isis, ''this rebellion of yours?''

''It's not rebellion,'' David replied defensively. He couldn't think of a better name for what the Lightbringer was up to but rebellion sounded so childish, the way his mother had said it, a hormonal- teenager thing, like getting a piercing or a tattoo.

''If you want to hurt us, you're going the right way about it,'' his father said sternly.

''Come back home,'' said his mother. ''Come back and all will be forgiven.''

David thought he had come back. He was home. Wasn't he?

He was having a dream, and outside the hotel room…

''We love you,'' said Isis, still fondling his father's cock.

''Don't make us angry,'' said Osiris, still fingering his mother's cunt.

Lightning flickered at the bedroom window. Thunder growled. The sky had been cloudless a few moments earlier, but now-

David snapped awake.

He had been having a dream, and outside the hotel room there were flashes of bright red-purple light and the rumble of distant explosions.

He went to the window and drew back the curtain.

The bombardment of Luxor had begun.

For two weeks the Nephthysians had been threatening an assault. The Afro-Arabian Synodical Council had debated and fulminated. There had been deputations to both the parliament in Cairo and the Kommissariat Svyatoy Dyela, the Setics' Commissariat of Holy Affairs, or KSD. From Freegypt's Prime Minister Bayoumi, nothing less than a full acceptance of liability had been demanded, along with a promise to track down the instigator of the temple attacks, the Lightbringer, and hand him over to Libya. Neither of these things could Bayoumi do. It was impossible for him to admit that his country was responsible, since that would be tantamount to a declaration of war on Libya. It was equally impossible to find and extradite the Lightbringer since Lower Freegypt had little say over what went on in lawless Upper Freegypt. Politically and practically, Cairo was stymied and the Nephthysians knew it and relished it and had no problem taking advantage of it.

As for the Setics, the KSD happily huffed and puffed on the Nephthysians' behalf and made all sorts of statements about unity, alliance, standing shoulder to shoulder against a common foe, the sanctity of the Bi- Continental Pact, et cetera, et cetera. ''To harm a single Nephthysian,'' said Vladimir Chang, KSD High Commissar, ''is to harm us all, Nephthysians and Setics alike. Just as the millions of us stand firm against Osirisiac expansionism, Anubian aggression, and Horusite interventionism, so we stand firm against this unprovoked and unprincipled violation of Libya and its people. Freegypt, like a viper in our midst, has bitten our flesh and the poison