She realized he was pointing at a rectangular square located somewhere in the lower city between the palace and the riverbank. Canopied stalls with tent-like coverings of every color imaginable crowded one next to another. Aisle after aisle filled the square, leaving no empty space uncovered. The bazaar of Lamara could have swallowed the Phalesian agora several times over.
As they drew inline with the palace the bank dropped away, curving in an arc of sandy shoreline. Chloe realized it was the city’s harbor. She couldn’t believe the number of vessels drawn up on the shore, a number that must be approaching a hundred.
Seeing the sun king’s fleet, she felt fear stab her stomach. Over half of the vessels on the shore were biremes, all of them as large and powerful as the Nexotardis. The powerful warship that had so concerned her father and the other consuls was just one of many.
Kargan stayed with Chloe at the rail, appearing to enjoy her awe and consternation at the sheer size of the city. His men knew what to do. In moments he would be home.
Scanning the harbor, she saw soldiers and sailors guarding the ships and scrubbing the decks. The beach sloped up until it joined the buildings facing it. A sailor exited a hut on the shore, two steaming bowls in his hands, handing one to a friend.
Kargan had a hint of a smile on his face as he regarded her, as if he were waiting for something. Chloe frowned, and looked back at the harbor.
Then, somewhat distant, but so large it couldn’t be real, she saw something that took her breath away.
It rose from behind the red buildings, erected on the land further upriver, within the city walls but far from the palace. It was a mountain . . . but a mountain made by men, perfectly proportioned, triangular-faced on all sides. It was the biggest structure Chloe had ever seen.
She rubbed her eyes. She could see shining golden blocks the size of houses piled one on top of the other, describing how it had been made, with each level slightly smaller than the one below. Strangely, two thirds of the way up, the glistening faces ceased and the levels became naked stone all the way to the summit.
The triangular mountain continued to grow bigger in Chloe’s vision as they approached the harbor. Where the stones were clad, the mountain shone bright yellow in the sun.
‘In the name of Aeris, what is that?’
‘It is the pyramid,’ Kargan said.
Chloe couldn’t take her eyes off it. ‘Who built it?’
‘Slaves.’ Kargan laughed. ‘It was built with the pitiful lives of wretches.’ He looked at it for a while before sobering. ‘Solon built it.’
‘What is it?’
Kargan’s expression was now grave. ‘It is the sun king’s tomb,’ he said softly.
‘And is that . . . Is it covered with . . . ?’
‘Gold,’ said Kargan. ‘Pure gold.’ He hesitated. ‘It might help you to know: the sun king is dying.’
Chloe looked at Kargan’s face. He was deadly serious.
‘The magi say there is a cancer inside him, robbing him of breath, causing him to cough blood. He visited the Oracle at Athos to seek the Seer’s wisdom. The Seer did not tell him what he wanted to hear. She said he doesn’t have long for this world, and that he would be dead by the end of the thirty-first year of his reign. When he pressed the Seer, asking what he could do, she said there was only one thing: prepare his soul for the afterlife.’
Kargan was pensive for a time.
‘When he returned to Lamara he consulted the priests of all the gods. But only the prayers of the priests of Helios the sun god were answered; only they gave Solon the solution he sought. The sun god says that building this pyramid will assure the great king’s passage through the gates of Ar-Rayan to the next world. It must be the tallest structure in the world, and it must be clad in gold. Solon has scoured the continent for gold. You will not see golden jewelry on the women here. Yet his tomb is not complete.’
‘What year is it?’ Chloe asked.
‘It is the thirty-first year in the reign of Solon the sun king.’
He and Chloe both gazed at the distant golden pyramid.
‘This year is his last,’ Kargan said.
Chloe looked back at the Nexotardis one final time as Kargan’s marines formed an escort for the pair, leading them up from the harbor to the dusty streets of Lamara. Her journey had been an ordeal, fraught with peril, and she still had the prophecy of the Seer burned into her consciousness.
Her greatest trial was still to come.