Max Allan Collins

By now the sorceress had seen her beloved rise from the dead, and she was filled with hope, as she saw the remarkable barbarian facing his foe for one last try at changing the future.

But Cassandra's hope fell, as guards suddenly rushed into the courtyard. A captain ordered them to stand fast, and they did, frozen at the sight of their king atop the altar, poised against the purple night sky . . . with the Akkadian's arrow pointed at his chest.

The Akkadian's reinforcements, outside the palace, were a despondent group. Their plans had appar­ently gone awry; that fuse must have again been disrupted. Isis paced, her warriors anxious on the palace steps; and the scientist shook his head, be­rating himself under his breath.

Arpid staggered over to the little scientist. Woozy with disappointment, the thief put a conciliatory, consoling hand on Philos's shoulder, and said, 'You have to face the truth, my friend. It is just not going to happen.'

The scientist, eyes wide and haunted, shrugged in surrender. 'Can the Chinese powder have failed us?'

This would have been an excellent moment for the powder sacks to explode; but instead, a huge contingent of Memnon's army came clanking around the corner, swords raised.

Arpid and Philos exchanged terrified glances.

And the brave queen of fighting female warriors raised her own sword, though despite her fierce expression, she knew—as did her brave women—that they would be slaughtered in seconds.

Up in the courtyard, Memnon had ordered his guards not to interfere.

He preferred to stand atop his altar, and invite that arrow. At first he stretched his arms wide, and then—as when he had demonstrated his prowess earlier, in this very courtyard—he slowly drew them together until his palms were about a foot apart.

Finally the warlord spoke; his voice boomed as he addressed the wounded Akkadian, who aimed that secondhand arrow right at him: 'You would dare interfere with the prophecies of the gods?'

'Let me tell you something I have learned, teacher,' Mathayus said, drawing a bead on the man's chest, 'about these 'prophecies'....'

With this the assassin somehow managed to draw that taut bowstring back yet another foot. Mathayus narrowed his eyes, his face set, his expression grim, as he carefully targeted the arrow, whose very tip was even now dappled with the Akkadian's own blood.

As he stood with his hands apart, Memnon watched his adversary closely... and a flicker of doubt passed across the warlord's face.

'Don't pin your hopes on them,' Mathayus said.

And he let that arrow fly, straight and true....

Just as Memnon's hands were about to snap shut, clamping onto that arrow, a fuse far below him, in the recesses of the warlord's palace, touched the bags of black powder.

The massive explosion rocked the structure and all the people in it, including Memnon, who was shaken enough to allow that arrow to find a new home in his chest.

Soldiers who had charged forward, as Mathayus let the arrow fly, now were tossed like dolls as a plume of orange and red and blue, surrounded by mushrooming smoke, filling the sky itself with flame and dark clouds, blotting out the silver moon, block­ing all other sound with its man-made thunder. The foundations of parapets were shaken so severely that a huge bell began to toll in one of them.

And in the midst of all this, the Great Teacher— Memnon, king of the world—was blown off his al­tar, as if that arrow had the power of the gods. Along the way, his robes caught fire, and when he went sailing over the wall, down toward the city street, the warlord was like a falling star his freed subjects might make a wish upon.