Gem of the Setting Sun

The Egyptians said that topaz was colored with the golden glow of the mighty sun god
Ra. This made topaz a very powerful amulet that protected the faithful against harm.

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In the Middle Ages, the Topaz was believed to strengthen the mind and prevent mental
illness. A topaz was also believed to prevent sudden death, so men wore them into battle.
If the battle went badly, the topaz was said to make the wearer invisible at times of
emergency.

Justifying himself was not easy. Face to face with forty-two gods, the heart of the dead
was weighed in the presence of the jackal-headed Anubis, god of the dead, against a
feather, representing Maat, goddess of truth. Balancing the scale meant immortality.
Should the heart not balance perfectly, Amemet devoured it, and Seth, murderer of
Osiris, ate the rest of the body. It was little wonder then that spells, tokens, ushebtis,
shabtis, amulets, and charms held such sway over the Egyptians.

Zachary Taylor knew he was dreaming again when the pottery shards in the tray beneath
his hands reassembled themselves. He had time to see the glyph for ‘Ra’ take shape
before the artifacts, the classification table on which they lay, and then the entire field
tent vanished with a tiny sound, as if some small animal’s teeth clicked together.

Zachary found himself quite suddenly standing in the midst of the remote desert. The
sand was dark and heavy as mud, the silhouette of the temples in the distance. The night
was pitch black, yet the stars were like a million halogen bulbs hanging overhead. Zack
blinked at his now empty hands, at their bluish outlines, wondering if this would be the
good dream or the bad one.

A sound behind him, like a small beetle scrabbling across a rock, and Zack swiveled his
head, his chest filled with a familiar anticipation and dread.

Sitting on a campstool, head lowered over some object he held in his lap, was Ira,
shining black hair looking bluish in the starlight.

Oh, thank the Gods; it was the good dream.

Zachary’s feet slid in the shifting sand and Ira looked up from whatever he was studying
and smiled. Black eyes shining, lashes so long and thick they seemed to rim his eyes with
kohl. A long straight ‘regal’ nose, lips wide and lush, opening easily over straight white
teeth. His beauty sent an arrow of pain and need straight into Zachary’s solar plexus.
Then Ira stood, his movement fluid and graceful, his limbs golden and smooth as marble,
his hips clothed only in the white loin cloth of a hieroglyphic slave, and the pain in
Zachary’s chest shot lower and caught on fire.

“Ira?” he whimpered, holding out his hand in supplication.

The phantasm before Zachary advanced, stars shining through the dark eyes. The loin
cloth swayed enticingly. He held his hand toward Zachary as if offering to dance. His
skin seemed to become more transparent as he moved.

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“Don’t go…” Zachary begged, and closed the distance between them. He grabbed both
Ira’s hands and pulled him close. Ira came easily, thighs and chest pushing into
Zachary’s, his body warm, eyes dark and hot. They searched Zachary’s, full of some
need. He leaned forward, and in the darkness, Zack’s mouth found Ira’s closed, silent
lips.

Smooth strong fingers slid down Zachary’s hips, his pelvis pulled against the hard length
under Ira’s flimsy loincloth. Zachary opened his mouth, moaning, tongue seeking
entrance to Ira’s mouth, palms running hungrily over the remembered planes of Ira’s
body.

And then they were tumbling onto the sand. Zack felt its texture on his knees as his hands
ran over Ira’s cool and smooth torso. His mouth and tongue tasted the skin of Ira’s neck.

By all the Gods, he’d missed this so much.

“Baby…” Zack kissed the damp hollow of Ira’s shoulder, his hands sliding over the
curve of one muscled hip and under, feeling the long wet heat of Ira’s cock slide into his
hand. It was so good he thought he might die from it.

Zachary gave into the dream, his body finding what it craved in the grooves and hollows
of Ira’s body. He turned him, compliant beneath him and pushed up the loincloth, palms
cupping the cool hard globes of Ira’s ass, thumb tracing the cleft, moving downward.

Ira’s hips moved in frantic little jerks into Zachary’s hands. Back arching, shoulder and
arm muscles flexing in a series of shadowed shapes as his body begged for Zachary’s
touch. Zachary could hear his own voice, inarticulate with needy sounds, moans; his own
breath harsh with effort.

Then Zachary’s cock found the slick pucker, slid in easily, enclosed in blissful heat and
velvety muscle. Ira writhed silently beneath him, his smooth skin becoming suddenly
rough and dry, the silky hair in Zachary’s hands going coarse and then crumbling away
until Ira’s body turned to sand beneath him and Zack was screaming and grasping at the
dirt as he woke, thrusting hard against the cheap cotton sheets, nothing in his hands but a
thin foam pillow, his mouth opened on the cot. He cried out against the mattress in a kind
of desperate pain as his cock spent itself onto the lumpy cot beneath him.

“Fuck.” Zack rolled over, arm across his eyes, gasping for air and control, his whole body
shaking.

“You okay, Professor Brown?”

Zachary’s entire body almost left the mattress. He flailed and caught the hollow
aluminum edges of the cot. “Shit!” he barked, grimacing at the glare of light. “What the
hell are you doing in here?”

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First Corporal Brian Swenson stood in his doorway, covered from head to toe in desert
khaki, a dust-covered pith helmet with netting crammed over a sun browned face. His
eyes were encircled with lighter skin where the ubiquitous sand goggles protected him.

The goggles hung on his chest now, and there was concern in his sky-blue eyes.

“You screamed.”

“I’m sorry,” spat Zachary. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Corporal. And you decided to
enter my quarters because?”

“I thought you might be in danger, sir.”

Zachary had protested the presence of the Marine guards at his dig from the very
beginning. But the increased disappearance of valued artifacts in these areas had become
a political issue, and the government had decided to show at least some semblance of
concern. Still, the men were here to protect the digs and their contents. Personal tents
were definitely off-limits. “There are no artifacts in this tent, Corporal.”

Corporal Swenson’s face remained dispassionate. “No, sir, but there have been
kidnappings.” He gestured vaguely toward the northeast. “Those men at the Nigerian
sites were held for two weeks, sir.”

“Honestly, I’d welcome the change,” said Zack dryly, throwing back his covers and only
then remembering the state of his sheets and his shorts. He tensed and shot the Marine a
dark look.

Swenson’s eyes flicked down, then up. His expression stayed schooled to practiced
neutrality, but a touch of pink glowed on high, tanned cheekbones.

Zachary felt unbearably pathetic. “Was there something else?” he snapped, staggering to
his feet, rubbing at the damp on his face. Oh Jesus, had the Corporal seen him crying?

“No, sir.”

Zachary turned to the small washing table set up next to his cot. “Then can you leave me
what little privacy I have left to get dressed?”

“Yes, sir.” The curtains thumped against the doorway with the speed of the young
Corporal’s exit. Zachary bent to the washbasin, and caught his reflection in the hand
mirror hanging there.

Christ. It was worse than he had imagined. His face was grimy with the sand that seemed
to be everywhere, tear tracks obvious down his cheeks. His deep brown eyes that Ira had
always described as “soulful” were red and swollen with lack of sleep, and he looked
hung over. He hadn’t bothered to shave for two days, and his beard came in unevenly,

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looking like he’d hacked at his face with a butter knife. His wheat-colored hair stuck up
in tufts on one side and was flattened and shiny with sleep sweat on the other. He looked
at least a decade older than his forty years. Ghastly.

Well, he could do something about the beard at least.

Zachary focused on the ritual of scraping his beard carefully from the hollows and hills of
his square face with the bare blade, steadying himself emotionally in order to steady his
hand. He rinsed and studied his reflection one more time. Well, that helped, but sleep and
food would do him more good. He’d had insomnia since Ira had…since the
disappearance. And when he did sleep he was plagued by the dreams.

Since he’d lost Ira, I lost Ira, he thought miserably…he couldn’t sleep; what little food he
could choke down turned his stomach into a knot. And the only time he got hard, it
seemed, was during the dreams. He’d accepted it, of course, for a time, but when the
symptoms persisted - worsened even - he’d been to see a professional, back in New York.

“Considering everything you’ve been through lately,” Dr. Patterson had told him, smiling
benignly away in his big leather chair. “It's to be expected.”

“It’s getting worse.”

Dr. Patterson’s glasses seemed to reflect light. The effect was a lot like the Orphan Annie
of comic strips. He looked eyeless. “You know that old saying, ‘it's always darkest before
the dawn’. Sometimes things seem worse because they are getting better. It's all perfectly
normal, Mr. Taylor.”

Zachary threw cold gritty water into his face and thought about normalcy and how far he
had drifted from it. About the professorship chair he’d tossed aside in order to come back
out here; about the strange rituals he’d begun practicing; about his dreams. About the
object swathed in oilcloth and bubble wrap and hidden at the bottom of his field duffel.

Zachary knelt now in front of the duffel and slid it from the wrappings. Even in the dim
beige interior of the tent, the thing glowed like something otherworldly. Eight inches in
circumference, the gold itself, and only gilt at that, was of a low quality; the red lettering
almost worn away. But the enormous topaz stone in the center, a flawless golden
emerald-cut square, had been valued at a price higher than any gem on the market.

Zachary popped the top from a vial of oil and dripped a little onto the stone. His fingers
traced the hieroglyphs, his lips reciting the invocation inscribed there. Or the curse, if the
Egyptologists in London could be trusted. The Eye of Ra, they’d named it. Zachary
turned it over, rotating it three times and reciting the words again. He didn’t know why he
did it, except that it seemed the right thing to do. Then he wrapped it back in its coverings
and slid it under the clothing in his duffel.

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An archeologist had to be an optimist. He had to have bottomless wells of faith and hope.
It took both and a kind of mad zeal to continue to dig holes in the desert when others had
long since given up. And a shy, gay man, whose job took him to remote and sparsely
populated areas most of the time, needed an insane faith to believe he’d ever find
companionship. Zachary had found both in the Valley of the Kings. He'd found the
Temple of Ra, hidden behind the famous Ramses tombs, and, more importantly, he’d
found Ira.

“It was supposed to have been forever,” he whispered. “You promised, Ira.”

Now he was possessed of paranoia and ritualistic compulsion. That was what came of
finding that fate was quixotic and cruel.

Zachary threw on a shirt and grabbed the rest of his things. The little backpack that held a
few excavation tools, his watch, and the ID tag he flung over his neck. He was strapping
the watch on as he left the room and so did not see Corporal Swenson until he had almost
walked over him.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the young man, holding him erect with two big hands on Zachary’s
biceps. Zack almost shook the Marine off, jumping back and staring at him.

“Is there something else, Corporal?”

“No, sir.” he shifted in the doorway. A fierce frown brought sandy blond eyebrows to a
vee above the bridge of his short, Midwestern farmboy nose. “I… wanted to say… I
mean… if you wanted anything else, sir…” His voice faded as his words drifted and he
frowned with even more ferocity.

Zachary had the odd thought that the young Marine was flirting with him, but shook it off
as ludicrous. “Thank you, Corporal. I’m fine.”

“I mean, I… well it’s not the same, sir, but I understand how it is. To lose a friend, I
mean.”

Zachary took a breath, exhaled. “Do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Half a dozen questions flew through Zachary’s mind. He focused on the most pertinent
one. “How did you know?”

The Corporal looked surprised. “It's my job to know, sir.”

Zachary found his mouth open and snapped it shut before sand blew in it. “I wouldn’t
talk about it with anyone else, Corporal.” He shrugged, tried to make his grin humorous.
“They had me in a psych hospital for a week, you know.”

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“Yes, sir.” Corporal Swenson shifted his weight a bit, and Zachary suddenly became
aware of how close the Marine stood, how large his body was, how warm…

He took a quick step back. “Thank you, Corporal.”

“Call me Brian, sir. Please.” Corporal Swenson’s, no Brian’s, eyes came up and met his.
There was a kind of shy determination there. An appeal. So, he hadn’t imagined it.
Zachary felt his own skin heating, his heart beating harder.

“No,” he said tersely.

Brian blinked. The frown reappeared above his nose. “I. I…”

“I have everything I need, Corporal Swenson,” Zachary said crisply.

“Yes, sir,” he heard Swenson say as he strode away.

He felt like a prick, but he’d sworn to Ira and the Gods and himself. Off men for life.

Seth was standing at the edge of the pit on F49 as he walked up.

“What was that about?” His brilliant blue eyes, incisive and sharp as a steel blade, sent
one keen glance back toward the Corporal and then came back to Zachary, seeming
almost to pierce his skin. Zachary flinched.

“Nothing. A security question.”

“Huh.” Seth’s eyes sliced over him once, then focused their brilliance on the floor of a
quadrant of the dig. “Doesn’t look promising.”

“It didn’t before, either,” said Zachary.

Together they glared down at the pit.

***

Three years ago, Seth and Zachary had stood at the edge of a numbered anonymous pit
just northeast of the famous Ramses family tombs, staring down into an unproductive
corner and both wondering why they were still there. Having applied for the same
sabbatical, they met at the digs, finding immediate enthusiasm and remarkably
complimentary talents in each other.

“Oh, you’re new here aren’t you?” The boy looked up; his eyes were a dark, dark brown.
They widened with awe when he saw the famous Professor Taylor standing over him and

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Zachary smiled to see the way the boy fumbled to set down the fragile piece of stone,
then carefully wiped his fingers before extending one hand.

Long, strong fingers. A firm, familiar grip that held his hand a bit too long. Warmth
spread from Zachary’s palm up his arm, the hairs rising until he jerked his hand away,
startled. “I haven’t seen you before,” he said. The statement sounded like an accusation in
his own ears.

“I had to wait.” the boy grinned sheepishly, shaking the longish silky bangs out of his
eyes with a self-deprecating laugh. “Professor Taylor. I’ve wanted to meet you for so
long, and I… I thought I knew what I’d say when I finally did… but I’ve forgotten.”

Zachary felt the blush warming his entire body. He laughed, carefully shoving his still
tingling hand into the pocket of his khakis. “Probably going to ask for more money. They
all do after the first week here.”

“What, the great food and opulent living conditions aren’t enough?” Ira’s voice was
husky, with a slight accent that Zachary couldn’t place.

Zachary shrugged.

“Seriously, Professor…”

“Call me Zack.”

A blink, an expression of something almost… wise. “Zack, then,” said Ira. “I want to
thank you for inviting me to work here this summer. It was my dream for years.”

“Mine, too,” said Zack. “Though the Gods know why. And it wasn’t a favor, you know.
We expect you to earn your keep.”

“Ira,” said Ira, grinning. “My name, that is. In case you wondered.”

Zack had wondered. His photographic memory had been flipping through the file folder
looking for the resume and passport photo that would match the beautiful specimen that
sat before him. He was drawing a blank.

“I remember,” he lied.

Ira looked pleased. A slight flush appeared below his sunburned cheeks.

Zachary had a sudden wild thought. The sort of thought he never had. In those early days,
when he first met Ira, they happened frequently until he finally became accustomed to
them. But this first one startled him and he was still busy being surprised when he heard
himself say out loud, “I occasionally have my dinner on the outer rim of the Kings
plateau. It's one of those silly rituals that began when I was just a student myself.” He

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wondered why he was confessing this to the young man sitting before him when he heard
his own voice say, "Would you care to join me?”

Pleasure and excitement throbbed in those black eyes, almond- shaped, with a slight
black edge, the corners tilted. Zachary wondered about the young man’s ancestry. Damn,
where could he have put that resume? “I’d… of course,” Ira said.

***

If he could have seen it above the thick veil of sand and wind, the sky would be an
opaque white. The sun here filled the sky like a huge open eyeball, searing everything
beneath it.

Head down, handkerchief and hat covering almost his entire face, Zachary found his way
toward the site by memory and ear. Voices and the sounds of movement; the wind rising
along with the heat; the steady ching of metal on stone; the rhythm of the pulleys as the
ropes passed through them.

Suddenly, all was obscured again by the scream of the ever-increasing wind. Zachary
stopped in his tracks, waiting for it to abate.

Stupid goddamned wind. It’d been blowing ceaselessly since they’d arrived. An
unseasonable wind, according to the local workers who looked over their shoulders, made
the sign against the evil eye and spat whenever they mentioned it.

***

Zachary should have spent most of his days in the pavilion near the dig, sorting through
excavation notes and fragments. Updating their site map, rewriting grant requests, and
generally applying his extensive education to unraveling the meaning of what they were
finding here. But the same coil of tension that kept him up at night, kept the food from
settling in his stomach and his dick a useless lump of limp flesh, drove him to the site
instead. He’d stand at the edge, fidgeting, glaring down into the pit. Sometimes he’d call
Seth over and direct excavation areas. Specific zones he felt needed more attention,
tighter grids, the more experienced diggers. He knew Seth believed these instructions
were informed. The truth was that the tightening in his gut was Zachary’s only direction.
He just knew sector F16 needed to be unearthed, for example. He could feel it.

He paced up and down above the left corner, the wind driving dirt and sand in stinging
gusts across his skin, glaring down into the pit. A few white shirts, faces swathed in
handkerchiefs and covered in the floppy brimmed, UV ray repellant hats, everything
colored reddish brown. And then Zack saw Seth. You could spot Seth from fifty yards
out here. Uncovered, seemingly immune to the elements, or in open defiance of them, his
red hair blazed like a jet of fire, freckled skin tanned a ruddy hue. As if Zachary had

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called out to him, Seth paused in his movements and looked straight up the pit wall at
him. He waved.

A few moments later, Seth’s head appeared at the rim of the dig, he climbed the
remaining rungs quickly and advanced on Zachary, excited. His eyes were an intense,
almost unearthly, green - as if lit from within - his crooked grin was huge. “They
uncovered the lower left corner last night.” He clapped Zachary hard on the shoulder.
“You’re a genius, man.”

“Was something found?”

“Looks like an entrance, just like you said.”

Zachary had to quell the new claustrophobia he felt as they descended the ladder and
picked their way around the marked excavations zones, making their way to sector F16.
Something about the sienna-colored walls and the dense smell of earth, an odor he had
always enjoyed intensely, made him feel like he was choking.

“What do you think?”

The field worker had stepped back, her tools still carefully laid out in front of the tiny
corner of exposed stone. He and Seth squatted in front of it. Zachary utilized one of the
feathery soft camel’s hair brushes lying there and studied the faint hieroglyph it revealed.

“The Eye of Ra,” he said. “Of course.” He ignored the sensations those words always
engendered for him now. He feathered the brush expertly around the exposed stone.
Beneath the emblem of the god was a square encasing a spiral. “Shit,” he said, and
dropped the brush.

Was it his imagination or had the wind just stopped? There seemed to be utter silence all
around them.

Seth’s scarred and freckled finger pointed and very gently traced the obvious curve of the
chiseled opening around the markings. Oh. His sight seemed to have been almost
obscured by the glyphs. Actually, as he tried to study the ruin, his sight became narrower,
a kind of white tunnel closed around his vision, a roaring in his ears, dirt in his nostrils…

“Zack?” Hands on him though he was sinking, the white going black… “Fuck,” he heard
distantly. “Zack!”

***

When he woke, the sun had set. He was lying in his tent again. The cool desert air flowed
over him, clean and crisp and full of stars showing through the tiny window. Only when
he turned on his cot, the surface below him didn’t give with the shifting of springs of his
bed and the starry sky appeared over his head, as if the roof was missing.

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Zack sat up quickly, trying to get his bearings, his heart beating hard. He was in a room,
but not his own. The sienna-colored walls, covered with glyphs, an oil torch on the wall
revealed the interior of a burial chamber. The feeling of claustrophobia became intensely
unbearable while he chanted “a dream a dream a dream” to himself.

Then he saw the other figure lying nearby.

“Fuck.” Zack almost fell off what he now saw was the slab of stone he had been stretched
out on. He approached the figure lying nearby, already knowing what he’d find.

Ira lay as he had last seen him, in the mortuary at the Meroe police facility. His slender
young body blue and battered and laid out for identification. Zack couldn’t stop his hand
from reaching to lightly touch the oxygen-deprived lips. Ira had been crushed, they told
him; his ribs collapsing under the dirt that caved in upon him, but he had still suffocated.
Lying under the earth for hours maybe, in probably terrible pain, until the scant air ran
out.

It had taken them days to find him.

“Ira…” Zack was on his knees next to the slab, his fingers clenching the cold stone. It
was a dream, he told himself, only jumping a little when he felt the cool fingers touch his
arm.

He looked up, tears swimming in his vision. Ira’s eyes were open, that slight smile on his
lips. He touched Zack again, his brows drawing into a worried grimace, his fingers
tracing the damp on Zack’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Ira…”

But Ira shook his head, still smiling slightly, and pointed at the floor.

Zack looked down instinctively. The floor was filthy and covered with pottery shards,
damp excavation tools. He looked back at Ira. His face was no longer blue-ish,
recovering its youthful glow and bronzed, healthy appearance. Ira pointed at the floor
again.

“What?” Zack looked desperately around himself. Ira’s finger pointed insistently and
Zack focused on the tool he indicated. It was a crude wooden adze, he realized.

He looked up at Ira again, propped up on one elbow, his entire body naked and beautiful
in the starlight. He smiled and just touched his lips then pointed again at the adze.

Zack stared. He stood as if entranced and picked up the tool.

“This is a dream,” he told himself again, out loud, before touching the adze to Ira’s lips.

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Ira’s mouth opened and he took in a long, loud breath.

“Ah, Gods, that feels good. Thank you, Zachary.”

Zachary dropped the tool to the floor, feeling weak in the knees. Ira quickly scrambled
off the pallet and Zachary felt hands under his arms, holding him steady. Ira’s hands were
warm, strong - the calluses from years of field work still there.

“Are you all right?” Ira smiled at him.

“A dream,” said Zachary.

“No, darling, not a dream. Not exactly.” And Ira kissed him lightly. His breath was sweet
and fresh - just as heady a thing as the first time Zachary had stolen a kiss from him.
From the innocent young man sitting alone in a field tent, classifying fragments late at
night. “I needed you to open my mouth, love,” Ira said, sitting back on the pallet and
drawing Zachary toward him.

“Open… the ritual?” Zachary still felt wobbly on his feet, so he followed Ira, half sitting
beside him, half leaning against him. Ira’s arm came around him and his mouth played at
Zachary’s hairline. “A dream,” said Zachary desperately. “It's just a dream.”

“I’ve missed you.” Ira's breath gusted across Zachary’s forehead. “So much.”

Zachary gave into it all as he did every night and, sobbing with relief, captured Ira’s lips
with his own, one hand behind Ira’s neck, feeling the short hairs there, the other sliding
around the slim waist.

Ira’s hands ran over his arms; his cock pressed into Zachary’s belly, already leaking.
Zack’s fingers wrapped around the length of it and he felt Ira gasp into his mouth.

“Want to taste you,” Zachary whispered, kissing his chin, his throat, his collarbone.

“Zack.” Ira’s voice was hoarse and needy. The muscles of his abdomen were tight, his
fingers traveling wildly across Zachary’s head as he helped him to his knees on the cool
stone floor.

Zachary licked the smooth head of Ira’s cock. White and slim like a stone lozenge, Ira’s
dick looked more like the preserved dildos they had uncovered than any he’d ever seen.
He let it rest in his mouth for a moment, savoring the sensation, before he began sucking
hard, drawing it slowly into his mouth.

Ira moaned, his thighs shaking under Zachary’s hands. This was how it had begun for
them. Zachary kneeling before Ira, worshipping the youth and beauty of him, showing

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him how intense it could be, how wild sex between men could be. Ira had cried out with
surprise and pleasure and, after many nights, his love.

“Zack, oh Gods, Zack…”

Zachary’s hand found his own cock, began pulling at it to match the rhythm he had
established with Ira. Ira’s hands were eager but gentle, caressing his face, his voice
telling Zack how good it was, how good he was until he began begging, little gasps of
breath before he froze, a helpless noise and spurts of warm, salty come filled Zachary’s
mouth.

He held the softening cock in his mouth for a full minute before rising to pull Ira against
him, caressing his head as he nuzzled Zack’s chest. “I love you,” Ira whispered, as he had
so many times before.

Zack took a deep breath, mouthing the words he was always so desperate to utter in these
dreams. He clutched Ira a little tighter. “I…I’ve missed you…” was all he was able to
say.

But it seemed to be enough for Ira; he laid back, an affectionate smile on those lips, and
rolled over.

Zack barely had time to get himself wet, Ira pushing back at him urgently. Always so
eager for him, always so easy. He pushed inside, the muscles clenching around him like a
velvet fist.

He would wake fucking his own mattress, he thought, clutching at a body that wasn't
there, his mouth in Ira’s hair, trying so hard to say the words he had never uttered while
Ira lived. “I’m sorry…” He could say that.

Ira moaned. “I loved you, Zachary,” he said, arching. Zachary held Ira's arms, bones and
muscle moving so realistically. He couldn’t bear to lose him again, couldn’t bear this
every night. “Please,” he whispered into Ira’s hair, against the shell of his ear. “Please
don’t leave me.”

Ira groaned and clenched around him. The sweat on his skin slick and gritty. He tasted of
salt, of his need. Zachary thrust desperately, hanging on tight. But he could feel the
insubstantiality beginning, Ira’s skin going rough, the muscles less defined. “No…” he
sobbed, still thrusting, “no please, I … Ira, I lo…”

Ira sighed and seemed to deflate. “The eye of Ra, Zack,” he groaned. “I need it. You have
to…”

“Yes, I will, I will….”

“Promise me.”

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“I swear,” Zachary cried, lightning shooting from his balls through his body, “I swear”

“Jesus Christ, man, keep it down…” Seth’s California accent came at his ear, disorienting
and Zachary lashed out at the interloper. His hand was caught and he turned his head,
startled, looking into glaring green eyes.

“What?”

“You fucking idiot, you were babbling about the Eye. Do you do that when you dream
every night?"

Zachary pushed himself up on his elbows, blinking with confusion. He was in the
hospital tent, its sterile surfaces and glinting equipment flashing in his eyes. He covered
his head, a familiar migraine immediately present. “I don’t know.”

Seth glared at him for another minute, his eyes like green fire, then hopped up from the
edge of the bed. “I think you should sleep in my rooms from now on.”

“What?”

“That fucking Marine is outside the door right now. I don’t mind telling you, his interest
gives me the heebeegeebees.”

Zachary sighed. “I don’t think he’s interested in me professionally, Seth.”

Seth’s head jerked and he shrugged one shoulder as if to shake off this knowledge.
“Really don’t wanna know, man. But if you’re yelling stuff about the Eye every night,
I’m not comfortable that you’re entertaining some military cop.”

Zachary’s mind went immediately to the previous morning, to Corporal Swenson's
attentiveness. But he said, crisply, “I’m sure he hasn’t ever heard anything from his post
outside my tent.”

Seth appeared overly interested in a stele that lay labeled on a table. “Who knows what
you say in your sleep?”

The thought of having sex with anyone but Ira made Zachary’s stomach go sour. “I can
assure you,” Zachary said dryly. “That neither Corporal Swenson nor any other person
has been near me while I have been asleep.”

“Yeah, well, in my experience you people can’t keep it in your pants for a week at a
time.”

“I’m too tired to be offended,” Zack said coolly, “but not all homosexuals are
promiscuous, Seth.”

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Seth flinched visibly at the word. He picked up a reassembled vase and studied its base
carefully. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I always said it didn’t matter to me, Zack, but if this
thing becomes a liability…”

“I’ve told you it won’t.”

“That’s what you said before.”

Zack flushed, his whole face becoming hot with a combination of rage and
embarrassment and some other more confusing emotion. “How dare you…”

Seth set down the vase he had been studying with a dangerous sounding thump. “A
twenty-two year old boy? Geez.”

They glared at each other from across the room. Here it was. The subject they hadn’t
discussed in almost three years. Since the morning Seth had come into Zack’s tent and
found he and his young intern entwined on a cot.

Zack fought the emotion that threatened. “Ira…” his voice cracked on the word and he
shook it off. “Ira and I were in love…”

“God, that’s just sickening. How you can even call whatever you did to that kid love…”

“Fuck you.” Zack said, his rage so wild the words were a hoarse whisper. Gathering
himself together, he headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I can’t stay here. I can’t talk to you.”

“Fine,” Seth spat at him, face bright red, eyes like green fire. “But if I hear anymore
about the Eye, see anybody else nosing around…”

Zachary stopped and stared. “Are you threatening me, Seth?”

Seth’s eyes narrowed and his mouth pursed with some withheld statement. Then he
looked down instead, brushing at a speck of dirt on his sleeve. “Of course not. But,
Zachary, if you hadn’t … whatever, if that kid hadn’t been involved…”

“I know.” Zach said heavily. He bit his lip, the grief and guilt rising in him again. “I
know, and for whatever reason, this time I agree with you, Seth. You don’t need to
worry.”

Seth turned away from him again. “That’s all I need to hear.”

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“Good.”

Nevertheless, when Zachary left Seth’s rooms, he saw Corporal Swenson across the way
and bothered to give him a friendly nod. Brian looked surprised, but touched the rim of
his helmet in a sketchy salute.

It couldn’t hurt to have someone out there watching over him.

***

“Zachary, we need to talk.” Ira was sitting in the big hammock, long legs swinging lazily
back and forth, bare feet toeing the earth like a boy on a hot summer evening.

Zachary sat on the edge of the tomb, hands folded together between his knees and
wondered, despairingly, how anyone so dead could look so alive. “Go ahead,” he said,
feeling insane. “It's your nickel, I’m just sleeping here…”

“This is not a dream,” Ira said again. “I’m quite serious about this, Zachary.”

“Yes, you have said that repeatedly.”

“The Eye of Ra,” Ira said patiently. “I need that amulet. You have no idea.”

Zachary nodded along.

“Forty-two gods, Zack,” Ira said. “All of them wanting an explanation.”

“Forty-two?” Zachary almost giggled. “Has that been established absolutely? I mean, it’s
a theology, not a fact…”

“Do you know what happens if I fail?” Ira stopped his swinging, leaning forward intently.
His eyes had that serious look that Zachary had noticed that first day. Sitting at a
specimen table, magnifying glass in one hand, brows crinkled in concern, a lock of
shining black hair hanging so that it tangled in his lashes. The clarity and depth of
expression, the worlds of intelligence, the color like the depths of the ocean. Ira's eyes
had taken Zachary’s breath away.

“My god, you are so beautiful…” he was on his knees again, one of Ira’s hands clasped
in his. “Ira, I love you, you know that?”

Ira raised Zachary's hand and kissed it gently. Then he slid to the floor with him. Their
lips met and their bodies pressed together. Zachary buried his face in Ira’s neck and
inhaled him. “You smell of myrrh,” he said sadly. “Even in the dream I can’t forget that
…”

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“The incense protects me, somewhat,” Ira said, fingers braiding into Zachary’s hair. He
kissed Zachary's ear. “The amulet would keep Amemet way. Maat demands…”

Zachary burrowed against Ira’s neck. “Stop, please, gods, let me have this. Stop plaguing
me with this incessant Egyptology lesson.”

“Do you want me to be devoured?” Ira asked, his hands sliding up Zachary’s back and
down again, drawing his ass forward. Zachary shivered in their grasp and opened his
mouth on the muscle of Ira’s shoulder.

“I want you back with me,” he said tearfully. “I want my chance back.”

“You chose already, Zack.” Ira leaned back and looked him in the eyes, hands caressing
cheeks and temples.

“I didn’t. I didn’t know.”

Ira only looked at him, those eyes so wise. Zack had to look away.

“I need the amulet,” Ira said. “You owe it to me, Zachary.”

“I can’t…”

“You can. Bring it to the site. Tonight, while the others sleep.”

“Seth will kill me.”

“Let me worry about Seth,” Ira said, and the look in his eye was so foreign that it gave
Zachary a chill. Then the warmth was back and he kissed Zachary gently on the forehead,
the bridge of his nose, lips moving to breathe warmth against Zachary’s lips. “My love,”
Ira said on a breath. And Zachary was lost again in the madness, pushing them both to the
floor.

***

He woke feeling like he’d been drinking mescal all night. His head throbbed with

migraine, a shudder of nausea rising up his spine again and again, every creak and groan
of the wind outside like fingernails clawing slate.

The metal rings from which the door curtain hung screeched across the front of his skull.

“Professor Taylor? Sir?”

“Fuck,” Zack almost wept into the sheets beneath his face. He tried to cover his head and
his ears with his arms. “Leave me the fuck alone,” he said into the mattress.

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There was a very loud sound of feet shuffling at the doorway. “I’m sorry, sir,” said
Corporal ‘call me Brian’, softly. “But you have to wake up, there’s an..…incident
developing.”

Zachary felt the burn of the light as it seared his brain and he rolled and let his eyes open
just a little. “An incident?” his voice sounded completely foreign to him. The shape of
Corporal Brian seemed to fade and shudder in the throbbing light of the room, like a
wraith.

“There are men outside, sir. They… we aren’t sure what is going on.” Zachary very, very
carefully lifted his head so he could see the corporal’s face. He looked like he was at a
loss.

“I’ll be right there,” Zack said, and tried to sit up.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but when he came out of the gritty, yellow fog,
his mouth tasted of vomit and he was sitting on the cool earth with a hot, firm arm
bracing him and a big, leather-clad hand carefully patting his cheek.

“Are you all right?” Corporal Brian’s eyes were such a light blue, it was like looking
through his head at the sky, thought Zack wildly. His head swam and he clutched at the
big solid body.

“No,” he croaked. “I think I’m sick.”

“Yes, sir,” Brian said, as if this were the most obvious statement he had heard in his
lifetime. “I’m going to help you back into bed, sir. You should try to…”

“You said there was an incident.”

“Mr. Green will take care of it, sir. He’s radioed the central patrol office.”

Zachary accepted this, the way a man will when he’s too ill to comprehend something
large and complicated. “I don’t think I can stand,” was all he said.

If he hadn’t felt so utterly wretched, he would have felt humiliation at the way the
Corporal lifted his body, cradling it like a child’s, and lay him gently back on his cot. The
dark, brown face broke briefly in a clean white smile. “I’ll just step outside and get some
more water, sir.”

“Thank you, Corporal,” Zack said, and rolled over, hopefully, to die.

Through the night, Corporal Brian tended him. It may have been more than a night,
truthfully. Zachary’s sense of time dissolved and he swam in a miasma of dreams and
memories; sometimes Ira visited him, sometimes the nightmare. Ira screaming, mouth
filling with earth, the Eye of Ra glowing and obscuring his face…

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“Zachary!” Brian’s face was there again; hands firm and cool, dampness against his
forehead, on his lips. Zack sipped at whatever liquid was being placed there.

“Gods,” he croaked. “Oh gods…I’m sorry. You must think…”

Brian’s eyes were gentle as he smoothed Zachary’s dampened hair back, dabbing at the
dampness that had trickled into his ears. “I heard about it, sir. It must have been horrible.”

Beyond horrible, Zachary thought. “Yes,” he said. “Was I talking in my sleep?”

“You were calling out his name,” Brian said.

Zachary felt a little better. A little stronger. He wondered how long he’d been laying here.
He wondered what he’d shouted out in his delirium. “I’m not crazy,” he said. “Had you
heard that I was crazy?”

Brian’s eyebrows, Zachary was discovering, could speak volumes. Now they spoke of
fond amusement, surprise. “Not crazy, sir. You’re a brilliant man.”

Zachary chuckled. “Eccentric, then.”

“I had heard that, sir.” Zachary felt a soft touch on his cheek. Brian’s callused fingers so
hesitant. He leaned into the touch, feeling as if a clay wall inside him was crumbling. The
humanness of it felt so good.

Brian’s hand opened, his palm caressing Zachary’s cheek. “Professor Taylor…” he said,
his voice husky.

“Call me Zack,” said Zachary, turning his lips into that warm hand.

The metal rings of the curtain screeched and they both jumped.

“Well, well, well,” said Seth. He looked back and forth at them, his mouth pursed as if he
had just bitten into something sour. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

***

“You fucking idiot.”

“Seth,” Zachary was still too weak to feel anything like the outraged indignation he knew
was appropriate. His voice sounded, to his own ears, feeble and ineffectual. “Corporal
Brian and I. I have to assure you, we weren’t…”

Seth shook his head, like a dog shaking water from himself. “God, don’t tell me the
details. I can fucking just imagine.” He shuddered again.

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Fine. Let him torture himself with his homophobic fantasies, Zack thought, clamping his
lips closed over his protestations.

“I want him transferred,” Seth said. “As soon as we reach the field unit again.”

“Reach the field unit?” They were ten miles from Lampur and a huge military depot.
What could be the problem?

“The storm has completely cut us off. Jesus, how out of it have you been? Can’t you hear
it?”

The howl and scream was so constant that Zachary didn’t even note it anymore. Now he
paid attention, though, he could hear it out there, like large planks of wood being torn by
some jealous gods.

“We lost radio contact three days ago, when you first became ill. No one dares to leave
the dig site; you can’t see three feet in front of your face. All the wires are down, the cells
- the remote devices. It's some sort of freakish electrical abnormality caused by the
dryness and the wind. Or so says their nineteen-year-old communications 'officer',” Seth
said angrily.

Zachary felt like his mind was crawling over a towering sand dune. “We’re cut off?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Seth rose and stomped across the room.

“Three days? Seth, they would send somebody out here! There must have been some
kind of contact, some message. I mean, where are our supplies coming from?”

Seth slapped at his jacket; sand burst and rained from it. “Part of the problem, man. The
well seems fucked up and your Corporal says he needs some fucking specialized part to
fix it.”

“He’s not my Corporal …”

“Whatever!” Seth whirled around, eyes glowing with some inner fire.

“Well,” Zachary said reasonably, “we’ll just have to abandon the site. Have the guard tie
everything down, load up the camels and…”

“No,” Seth said, his voice very, very quiet. “We will not abandon the site.”

Zachary rubbed at his hair, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. “Well, obviously
we can’t stay under these conditions. I’ll go, I’ll bring back…”

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Seth was across the floor and had him by both shoulders, face inches away, teeth bared.
“You are not going!”

Zachary stared. For a wild moment he thought Seth was going to kiss him. “Okay, Seth,”
he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. “I’m not going. We can send somebody
else.”

That unholy fire in Seth’s eyes seemed to bank somewhat. “Maybe. In a few days, if the
storm doesn’t let up.” His fingers were still digging into Zachary’s shoulders.

Zack nodded. “Right, Seth. Sounds like a plan.”

Seth finally let go of him and stood. He shook his head and squinted. “Sorry. It's just …
the fucking wind, you know?”

Zack nodded again, wishing to the gods that the man would get out of his tent. Outside,
above the screech and scream of the wind, he heard the sound of something banging and
then a tumult of men’s voices. Seth’s head whipped around like a dog on the hunt. “What
the hell is that?”

He went for the door, looking back just once at Zachary. “Stay here,” he commanded.

Zachary nodded again, feeling uncomfortably like he was under arrest. He lay back on
the cot, his head still bright and filled with vertigo.

“Professor… Zack?” Brian was back in the doorway again. The expression on his face
unmistakable in its affection. “Are you going to be all right?”

Zachary nodded. “What’s going on out there?”

“Er, a little… some of the locals are worried about the storm.” Brian looked behind him
quickly then came closer. He leaned over enough to put one warm hand on Zachary’s
shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Sleep.”

Suddenly, Zachary could barely keep his eyes open. “I am still tired.”

“I’ll watch over you,” Brian said comfortably. “You rest now.”

***

When he woke, Ira was sitting on his belly.

“Oh, gods.”

“Shhhh…” One of those elegant fingers lay across Zachary’s lips. Ira’s hips rocked, his
buttocks bumping Zachary’s immediately erect cock. “I only have a minute.”

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“A quickie?” squeaked Zachary, hands reaching to touch Ira’s chest, his belly, his long,
perfect, wet cock. Ira’s eyelids lowered, fluttering.

“So good, Zack.” Ira’s body rocked on his, restlessly. “Always so good.” Then he rose
and lowered his body carefully onto Zachary. His hole enclosed Zachary’s cock in
perfect, tight heat.

Zachary thrust up, unable to stop himself, arching his head back, closing his eyes.

“Bring it tonight,” Zachary heard Ira say before his orgasm obliterated the dream. “It has
to be tonight.”

***

It was strange, Zachary thought, how the wind seemed to stop just as he emerged from
the tent.

Across the Valley of the Kings the starlight shone bluish, making the shadows heavy and
substantial-looking. He walked straight across the sand, not concerned at being seen or
questioned about the bundle in his hands. A kind of serenity possessed him, now that
he’d decided to do this thing.

The site was as they’d left it. Tourists rarely cared about the less fantastic sites, even
when the finds there had been famous. Zachary crawled through the passages, easily
remembering the locations of every pillar and crumbled wall. He also knew by heart the
pot shards and human bones that had been tagged and kept in place for further
cataloguing. He came at last - breathing hard to draw enough oxygen from the stale dank
air - to the tomb where they had found the Eye of Ra. He pushed around the corner,
lowering his head and rolling, until he was able to drop into the chamber. Once there, he
drew the flashlight from his pack and switched it on.

“I knew you’d be here,” he said to the shadowed figure that sat in the corner. “I knew…”

“How did you know?” Seth’s voice was like that of a snake’s as he stepped forward so
Zachary could see him. Zachary almost dropped the light.

“Seth?” He stared. “Seth, what has happened to you?” The sight of his partner was almost
as surprising as finding him here in the tomb in the first place. Seth was dressed like his
namesake of Egyptian mythic fame - the clinging white tunic, the heavily carved head
piece. An ornate pottery beard had been adhered to his chin and his brilliant blue eyes
were heavily lined with kohl.

“I am as I was,” Seth said, his American accent replaced by something wholly foreign
and unfamiliar. He gestured toward the bundle that Zachary had almost forgotten, cradled
in his arms. “That belongs to me.”

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“No it doesn’t,” said Zachary, clutching the bundle. “It belongs to Ira.”

At mention of his lover’s name, Seth’s entire face became suffused with an insane rage.
“That child?” he screeched. “That pretender to what is mine?” He came across the tomb
now, fast and fierce as a bird of prey. Zachary flinched and cowered over his bundle.

“Stay away from him.” Brian’s big body was suddenly between them. His face had that
stony, unblinking look Zachary associated with military police. He took a step forward
and Zachary saw his hand resting on the butt of his military-issue rifle.

Seth snarled, teeth bared. “Get the hell out of here,” he hissed.

Brian shook his head slowly, watching Seth. One hand came back to rest possessively on
Zachary’s chest. “Mr. Taylor has business here, Mr. Green. You don’t. Go back to your
tent.”

Seth raised his hand and began reciting words that were familiar, yet not. Zachary
recognized the Egyptian, but the accent was so strange and the cadence so odd that he
could only translate sketchily. “Blood” and “Mother Isis” and “the Source.”

Brian made a threatening sound and unlatched the safety on his rifle.

Zachary’s head was spinning. The vertigo and words flooding his brain. “Stop…”

Seth kept up his chant. His words seemed to have weight and volume, falling on
Zachary’s and Brian’s heads like clods of earth. Zachary found himself crouching on the
floor, Brian bent protectively over him. And the seeming earth had now become real
earth. Over Seth’s voice, Zachary could feel and hear the ceiling caving in on top of
them.

“No…” he whimpered. “Not him, too. Ira. Please…”

A surprised grunt came, as if he had been hit, and Brian collapsed on top of him. The last
thing Zachary remembered was the odd vision of the stars through the earthen ceiling.

***

There was too much noise. Why was there always so much noise? Zachary tried to bury
his head under the pillow and found his wrist constrained.

“Zack?” The voice so near him sounded hoarse. He tried to open his eyes.

“Zack? Can you hear me?” The sound of aluminum on tile came and then a loud voice
bellowing, “Nurse, get someone over here, he’s awake.”

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“Oh, please,” Zachary whispered wearily, his eyelids feeling as if he literally had to peel
them from his eyeballs to open them. “Must you always wake me?”

Brian’s eyes were warm and shining with something very like tears. “Yes.”

***

EPILOGUE

The sun set quickly over the rim of the temple of Ramses II. Brian bent over and turned
up the little torch they had brought, then settled back in against Zachary’s side.

“Are you warm enough?” he said, comfortably drawing Zachary up under his big arm.

“I do wish you’d stop fussing over me like some invalid. I’m hardly a sick old man.”

“No, not hardly.” Brian chuckled, his eyebrows dancing with meaning. “Judging by last
night.”

Zachary fiercely fought the blush that rose to his cheeks. “The entire camp probably
heard us.”

Brian laughed out loud then leaned into Zachary and kissed him gently. Strong and brave
but gentle and almost shy in love. Brian rarely initiated these moments, and Zachary let
him lead for once, let Brian push him back onto the blankets and nuzzle his way down,
drawing Zachary’s cock into his mouth and groaning when Zachary’s fingers threaded in
his hair and Zachary’s come flooded his mouth.

Later, he sat up, wiping his mouth. Zachary looked down at him through heavy eyelids
and then up at the column that loomed so far above him.

“Did it really happen?” he asked the heavens and the gods.

Brian nuzzled his balls. “Yes,” he said, “and no.”

“Was he real?”

Brain propped himself up on one elbow. “Did he seem real?”

Zachary pointed a finger at him. It was hard at that angle, so he sat up to make his point.
Grinning, Brian joined him, gathering him up as if he were a rag and kissing his neck.
“You are hardly a philosopher, Corporal.”

“I wasn’t being philosophical,” Brian said. “He seemed real to you. He sure as hell
seemed real to me when he dragged us out of that tomb.”

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“That was him, then.”

“Him or something like him. The gods only know.”

“You swear by the gods, now.” Zachary smiled. “I’ve turned you into a pagan, you
know.”

“Mmmm.” Brian seemed to have found yet another part of Zachary that needed kissing.

“I loved him,” Zachary said softly. “Does that bother you?”

“Only if I have to share,” Brian said. “But we’ll worry about that when the time comes.”

“What do you mean?” Zachary tried to push himself free so he could see the expression
on Brian’s face, but Brian would have none of it. He attached himself to a nipple, his
tongue moving rapidly.

Zachary wriggled under the assault, smiling. “Oh gods, who cares?” And Brian growled
his agreement.

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Birthstones: Eye of Ra

Copyright © 2006 by AM Riley

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews. For information address Torquere Press, PO Box 2545, Round
Rock, TX 78680

Printed in the United States of America.

Torquere Press electronic edition / November 2006

Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press, PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX
78680.

www.torquerepress.com

A Torquere Press Birthstone - 26