LAND OF MYSTERY

by Barbanne


The great Roman galley cut through the moonlit surface of the middle sea.

In the forward hold I watched Calpurnia as she tossed and turned on her hard bunk, crackling the filthy straw which served as a mattress. We two were the last survivors of the five harlots taken on board when the ship set out from Rome, bound for Alexandria. Of the other three, Cassia's strangled corpse had been dragged back here after she had succumbed to a particularly brutal session with the officers and the other two had fallen victims to fevers bought on by the squalid filth of the stinking hold in which we were imprisoned. The Romans cared little for us as we would be replaced when next a landfall was made. We were kept locked up by day and used endlessly and brutally by night. Calpurnia and I had laid out and dressed the dead bodies of the other girls and now it seemed I would soon be burying her also as indeed, I myself, or at least my inanimate husk, would probably soon make the last journey to the floor of the ocean, brutalised and dead, bound in chains and dumped over the side.

I bathed her hot brow with water.

Calpurnia looked at me from fever burnt eyes, wild, red, suffering. Her hand reached out. "Bar........................, Bar.......................,I.................................."

Her face twisted in a frenzy of pain, her mouth contorted in a horrible rictus and she stared at me fiercely, singularly, her eyes wide and glittering with the sickness which was consuming her body. Then they glazed over and rolled backwards as though they sought some secret in the top of her skull and her clawed hand clutched at mine and she shuddered once and died.

I fell across her body shaking it and crying wildly, "Calpurnia, Calpurnia, no, no, no.........."

No good. She was dead, her near nude body dripping, awash with sweat. I lay my head on her breasts and wept.

I heard a noise penetrating my misery, intruding into my consciousness. A wild banshee wailing. The screaming of the demons of the wind and then the whole space in which I was, tipped sideways. The timbers of the hull shook, quivered and shuddered as some enormous force battered into it. Some insane tempest. Unheralded, unexpected unknown. A wild screaming, the siren sounds of the ocean goddess, no it was the death agony of the galley's frame and suddenly the thick planks sundered apart and a torrent of green water rushed in. Calpurnia's body lurched upright and her dead arms encircled me and we were both forced backward by the deluge. My shoulder struck something, more timber split asunder and Calpurnia and I were swept out into the roiling, tumbling, depths of the sea.

I was being tossed about madly in a helter skelter nightmare of cold, green, foam filled turbulence. Calpurnia's near-naked dead body clung to me like a lover. I struggled to be free but she was entangled with me in death's own embrace. My gown floated up over my head and I knew despair. Then without warning my head broke the surface and I saw huge waves towering over me. The galley was on its side, its masts thrashing at the water like some giant, demented, drowning sea creature. The oars on one side pointed skywards and lightning played along them. With an enormous cracking noise, it split in half, its hull broken by the fury of the tempest. It began to slip under the waves. I was thrashing at the water and Calpurnia came free from me and I saw her naked, white body spiral down into the depths. My gown was around my head and despite my every effort it became more and more tangled the more I struggled. I swallowed my umpteenth mouthful of water and gave up and my arms and legs floated free and spread out limply I started to sink down.

Incredible pain in my scalp shattered my lethargic surrender and I was hauled upward by the roots of my hair and felt my body scraped as I was dragged onto rough planking. I lay there panting, completely entwined in my sodden gown and vomiting sea water onto the platform where I lay. My body shuddered and I felt strong hands lifting me, turning me, rolling me onto my back and dreamlike, my overloaded brain closed down.

Blackness.

The next thing I became aware of was two parallel lines disappearing into infinity.

I was dead and this was the afterlife. A mystery of the land of infinity of the soul. The parallel lines were the endless torment of the dead soul. They would never meet and the soul would never find rest. I didn't believe this, I didn't believe I had a soul. If I was dead then this should be the great nothingness. Dead was dead.

I watched bemused and realised I was looking at my naked legs scoring twin furrows in wet sand. Naked legs, naked tummy, naked groin.

Pubic hair.

Sunlight. It was daytime.

"Ooooooooooooooooh."

My voice was muffled by the sodden gown which was still wrapped around my shoulders and head.

Bare breasts. Warmed by the sun.

I was being dragged by the shoulders up onto a beach. It was daytime and the sun was warm. Through the filmy folds of my gown I could vaguely see debris from the wreck of the galley in the surf and the drowned corpses of my former shipmates, strewn in the shallows.

"Oooooooooooooooooooooooh."

Someone was groaning. It was me. My voice sounded weak and whiny and the tangles of my gown, my sleeping gown, enclosed my upper torso and entrapped my arms and covered my face. I tried to see who my saviour was but could see nothing. I was laid down on my back in soft sand and the sun warmed my bare flesh and once again I surrendered to the soft velvety blackness of unconsciousness.

I jerked awake.

I was lying naked on my back in the dappled shade of some palm trees. Above me my gown flapped drying in the sun. I had a huge headache and my shoulder was on fire. I groaned loudly and pressed my fingers to my forehead.

"Ah, you're alive."

A face floated into my view, silhoutted against the glare of the sun. I squinted, screwing up my eyes and a handsome face started to appear. A strong, young, manly face, black curly hair and grey eyes and a strong chin cleft with a dimple. The head sat atop a slender neck and broad shoulders and a powerful chest. I had died after all and this was girl's heaven and he was my eternal reward. My face melted into a dreamy grin.

"Don't cark out on me again."

Didn't sound like an angel.

My headache wasn't heavenly either. I groaned and sat upward and everything spun and I flopped back helpless.

"Take your time. Here, let me help you."

His strong arms lifted me slowly into a sitting position. He wore only a short Roman skirt and I, it suddenly dawned on me, was stark naked. I took his hand and placed it on my bare breast.

"Fuck me, lover."

He grinned, "Later, maybe. First things first."

I smiled still half out of it and then I noticed that we were surrounded.

Warriors.

Fully armed but semi naked.

Women!

*

My saviour had not noticed the arrival of these silent antagonists.

His eyes slowly registered the look of fear that had crept into mine and, turning his head, he looked around.

There were maybe twenty of them. Tall, slender, strong looking females, clad in sandals and shin guards and some sort of tiny sling that covered their pudenda and breast plates covering each breast and forearm guards and plumed helmets. They were white skinned and black haired and they looked grim. Their clothing, such as it was, and their armour, was all black. They were armed with bows and short vicious blades. About ten bows were drawn taught and aimed at my chest, or so it seemed to me. I raised my arms to show I was unthreatening. Being totally nude I could hardly have looked dangerous.

The man stepped away from me and one of the women jerked her head at me, indicating I should get up. I did, slowly, and then still holding my hands out I pulled my gown off of the branch where it was hanging and holding it at arm's length made signs that I wanted to put it on.

They didn't say or indicate no. They didn't say or indicate yes.

I slipped the light gown over my head and settled it on my body. Not exactly dressed for vigorous action, but it was all I had. I looked over at the Roman who had carried me from the ocean. He was a true spunk, that was for sure. His near-naked body was tuned to perfection like a finely trained athlete and he was achingly handsome. I noticed that the girls all seemed to have eyes for him, some overtly admiring, some covertly peeping. By comparison I had about as much interest to them as the tree did.

Two girls stepped forward and my companion's hands were bound behind his back with some sort of leather thong. Then I was similarly tied. By gestures and rather unladylike shoving they indicated we were to move and they set off, hustling us with them, headed for the interior away from the beach.

We marched along at a fair pace for most of the morning and after an hour my feet were in agony. Being a harlot had not tended to toughen my footsies, if anything my back was my strong part. I was soon stumbling and bleating piteously but all to no effect. More shoving and occasional blows were all I got for my trouble. I fell once or twice but was just jerked back upright and prodded along even more viciously.

After a while, tears started to run down my cheeks as I contemplated what a sad wretch I was but that went unnoticed.

About noon we arrived at a city in the sandy desert which we had entered almost as soon as we left the coastline.

It was comprised of low mud brick buildings, grouped in a circular fashion around a central larger building. None of the buildings was particularly notable and certainly none had the magnificence of the buildings of Imperial Rome. Doorways were low and arched and small round windows penetrated the sides. Smoke was issuing from the tops of some of the buildings. We were led to the large central building and pushed inside. The interior was in stark contrast to the outside, floors were carpeted with woollen fleeces and the walls and ceilings of the building were white and smooth. We had entered some kind of small antichamber and from there we were dragged into the main part of the building, a large central space in the centre of which was a pool full of cool blue water. A running fountain fed the pool and it looked extrememly inviting. Around the pool lay many women of all ages, most of them nude or near nude. A half dozen warriors, dressed as were our captors, stood guard around the perimeter. There were low divans and lounges surrounding the pool and many of the women lay on these. On the side away from where we had entered a richly covered divan contained three elderly women and it was toward them that we were propelled. When we reached them, they, like all of the other women in the room, had eyes only for the Roman soldier. I was pushed to the floor and two of the warrior women placed their sandalled feet on my back and held me down.

I squirmed and twisted but I was firmly pinned to the floor. Another foot landed on the back of my head and forced my face into the woollen flooring. I could hear the women conversing in a language unknown to me. Bursts of laughter punctuated their talk and I swivelled my eyes in hope of seeing something. I could see the Roman's strong, graceful legs and his sandals and then, as I watched, his short soldier's skirt fluttered to the floor and the laughter increased.

"Fuck you bitches," I thought. "He was going to be mine."

I wriggled and muttered and earned a sharp kick in the ribs. I lay there plotting what I'd do to these babes if I got free and how I'd spurn that bastard if I had the chance. Then, as I lay there fermenting in hatred and jealousy, I felt myself grabbed by the arms, the gown, and the hair, and I was hauled upright. I stood there, red faced and fuming and there was my Roman soldier, my saviour as I had come to think of him, reclining on the divan with two of these naked chicks clutching his biceps. He had been dressed in a red and gold open toga which was split open down from the neck, displaying his gloriously sculpted chest and flat, lean tummy and hinting at a forest of curling pubics with something magical nestled within. I gaped in a combination of lust and bright green envy and one of the warrior women holding me slammed a gloved fist into my kidneys. I grunted and went to the floor on my knees. They pulled me roughly to my feet. I looked at that patrician Roman face and tried to read what was written there. He stared back, impassive, seemingly uncaring and yet..........did I see something in his eyes? Some message of hope? The women flanking him gazed at me like I was a dog's turd. The three elderly women conferred amongst themselves and then one, a titian haired superior-looking bitch, waved me away dismissively and the guards frog marched me from the main room and, struggling and making a spectacle of myself in front of these languid nude women, I was taken from the room. My warrior guards led me into a passageway that opened off of the main hall and one muttered something, an imprecation. I didn't know the language but I recognised an oath. Someone drove her fist into my back again and my knees buckled and then a foot slammed hard into the back of my knee and I went down gasping. Two of the warrior women grasped my upper arms and pulled me along the corridor, my legs and feet dragging behind me. A gloved hand was smashed into my temple and I reeled in a firmament of star points in inky velvet and then some hard object cracked the back of my skull and I collapsed out cold.

*

I came too slowly, my head aching abominably and every part of my body on fire with pain. I tried to lift my head but it felt like lead.

I was in some sort of stone walled dungeon, sprawled on my back across a huge cold slab and spreadeagled like the figure X, with my hands and feet clamped in huge manacles of iron.

The women were there and so was a glowing brazier and an array of torturer's instruments. My gown was dirty and torn and had been rolled up to my neck, baring most of my body.

They set to work.

Within minutes I was screaming and practically off my head altogether. Inside fifteen minutes I had fainted into a coma from which nothing would waken me.

I suppose I was being punished for being with the man these women wanted.

Who knows?

Fortunately when I passed right out they must have stopped or I would surely be dead.

The next thing I was aware of, I must have regained consciousness, still on my back, manacled to the stone slab and aching in every fibre of my being and hurting from the pain of lying so long on a very cold slab. My kidneys hurt like I couldn't describe and the urge to pee was almost unbearable. I could see two of the warrior guards by the door and I heard a long and agonising groan. It was me. I had groaned unconsciously. As soon as I did, one of the guards made her way to the slab. I figured I was best being still senseless, as to be found to be conscious would only bring about a resumption of the torture. When the guard reached me I lay as though dead. She peered at me and I could feel her breath on my face. She spoke, it sounded like a question, maybe she was enquiring after my health. I lay dead still. She grabbed my face in her hand and flipped my head back and forth. I let it roll lifelessly. She prodded me and then pinched my flesh, first my tummy and then she took my breast and cruelly twisted my nipple. Despite the agonising pain I made no sound and showed no signs of life. After a few minutes she walked back to the door.

I risked a peek from behind my eyelashes and she was with her companion once more.

I lay there considering my fate. All I had done had been to postpone my eventual demise. I couldn't hold out much longer and then they would begin again with the hot irons and the clamps and the blades and spikes. I sighed silently and found that I had peed everywhere, my poor bladder had been unable or unwilling to obey my mind and had sought relief. The relief was something I truly appreciated although my ass now lay in a puddle of my own piddle.

To say I was filled with wretched despair would be to put too kind a meaning to how I felt. I was suffering the mean blacks. So full of my own misery was I, that I almost missed seeing a movement over by the door. I watched, unsure what I had seen. A muscular forearm was snaking through the crack between door and frame. The hand at the end of the arm clutched the neck of one of the warriors and the fingers clenched in a vise like grip. The girl made a noise like a strangled seagull and her eyes rolled out of sight and she slumped limply and then, as the hand released her, slid to the floor. The second girl turned, reaching for her blade and her mouth opened to cry out. A short flash of brightness as a sword blade stabbed quickly and the thrust took her at the base of her throat, cutting off her cries and she tumbled down dead.

The Roman entered. he stooped and fumbled with one of the dead warriors.

"Hey over here," I said (it came out like a croak) "I may look shithouse but I'm more alive than she is. Unless of course you prefer them dead." I added as an after thought.

He crossed to where I lay, keys in hand. He started working on the manacles, unlocking them and freeing me. "Cheez, by all the gods, but you stink."

"Sorry." I blushed. "Piddled myself."

He got me free and helped me stand. I had to clutch the slab for support and he pulled my tattered gown down over my nudity.

"By the way. I'm Cassius."

"Barbanne." I tried a smile but gave a grimace.

"Let's get out of here. By the way, you look like shit."

"I feel like shit. This has not been a good day."

We set off. I could only manage a hobble but as I went I got better and started making like I could walk. The thought of being tortured again gave me purpose.

He pushed the door open, me standing behind him peering around him. Gods, Cassius was a big boy. There was another guard girl outside the door. She was twisted around herself and had died violently, quickly and not prettily. He grabbed my hand and pulled me along to the main room. It had only three occupants now. The three elderly women who were still lying on the divan. Only now all three were dead, strangled by the look of their open staring eyes and protruding tongues and bluish faces. Cassius glanced at them.

"What I had to do for you," he muttered. He was still wearing the red and gold robe and where it was open I saw long fingernail scratches as well as multiple love bites.

"Ladies didn't go without a fight, then," I whispered.

"Gods, Barbanne, I had all three of the old monsters all over me and what I had to give them to get them off guard............."

"Poor boy," I crooned and goosed his butt.

We crossed the room and I caught a glimpse of myself in a polished mirror. I looked awful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My hair was a mess, tangled, sweaty, all over my head like a halo! I had no makeup and I could see burn marks and bloody cuts and red stripes all over the parts of my body that my torn and shredded gown didn't cover and that was most of me. My hands and wrists were red raw from the manacles and it was a wonder I was upright. My face was tear streaked and it was evident I had piddled myself.

Oh well, never say die.

We reached the antichamber and he held me back while he sneaked a peek. Holding his hand up, he indicated I should wait, and then he was gone. I crept forward and looked around the corner. There were three guard girls in their black uniforms. As I watched he reached them and, taking two of them by the helmets, he banged their heads together with a crack that rang off the walls. They went down together, out cold. The third girl drew her weapon but he brushed it aside and, taking her by both ears, snapped her neck like a twig. She dropped down dead. He waved me on and I ran to where the prone girls lay in a heap.

"Don't stop," he hissed.

"A moment," I said and after a quick measure, I stripped the sandals from one of the unconscious bodies whose feet more or less matched mine. I pulled them on and strapped them up. So, he in his red robed finery and I in a rag of a gown, no undies, nothing else but another girl's sandals, we ran into the blackness of the desert.

*

Cassius lay on top of me moving urgently. I could see the stars above and could smell and taste his nakedness. Unfortunately, I could also smell myself. He grunted and cried out and his cum shot inside me. It wasn't the greatest sex I'd ever had but heck, I owed the guy. He caressed me and kissed my mouth. Hey, it wasn't so bad after all.

We were camped in a small depression in the desert, surrounded and sheltered by rocks. We had found some fruits on a tree nearby, small, sweet, brown fruits and together with water oozing from the sand we had been able to make a simple but satisfying meal. I had tried to wash myself but, not wanting to waste precious water, I had had to make do with cleaning up my cuts and scrubbing my face. My hair was off on its own and I stank something powerful, but I at least felt better. My gown was a sorry sight and and I might as well have been nude for all that it hid from Cassius's sight. Not that I cared, I had decided that this handsome man who had now saved me from death twice was entitled to my friendship and the comforts of my body.

He kissed me again and I felt my body come alive. Stirring in my lower tummy and a hot flush moving out, spreading into my groin and upper thighs. My nipples tingled and my breasts flushed too. I kissed him back, open mouthed and tongue questing, finding his, grappling. His hands covered my back and sighing contentedly, I rose and slipped my gown off over my head. He took advantage of my raised arms to fondle my breasts and I moaned and shook all over. His manhood was erect and in the moonlight I lowered my lips to where it curved upward and took him into the wet cavity of my mouth. I started sucking.

"Of course, as a common soldier I never had the pleasure of your services on the galley," he said.

"Nnnnnkkk."

"I regard that as my loss and thank you for giving a poor soldier comfort."

"Nnnnnkkk."

"I.....oh yes, just there......suppose this gives you no pleasure, being a professional woman."

"Nnnnkk, dnnn 'ee stooo'id............"

"Beg pardon miss..............ooh my, oh yes...........gods yes."

"'et 'eee sccck 'ooo."

"Ah yes.............."

He came with a rush and I swallowed hungrily, protein to go with my fruit. I turned to him, "Cassius! I am affording you the use of my body because I feel grateful to you and I find you damned attractive. So no more of the professional lady if you please."

He kissed me again and I giggled with pleasure and nestled my soft nudity against his hard strength. The air was balmy and warm, the sand soft and dry and I was bone tired and I was soon deeply asleep, cradled in his arms.

*

The next morning I was awake early. I still felt stiff and sore like shit but I gradually improved when I got up and got going. Breakfast was fruit and water again. As we munched I asked Cassius where we were going.

"To the coast, I hope," he said.

"Which way's that?" I asked.

"No idea," he admitted.

"Ermmmmmmmmmmm........." I wasn't a lot of help.

"Keep the sun to our right." He smiled at me. "I was a soldier you know, not a navigator."

"Well don't look at me," I grinned, "I know up from down is all."

We started walking. Within an hour I was starting to blister and staggering. Cassius wasn't great but he was doing a lot better.

Then without warning the wind rose and a sand storm hit us.

What hell.

I covered my face with my hands and stumbled on. The sand stung my arms and legs and tore at my wounds. I gripped Cassius's cloak and hung on. I could only just see him in the blinding showers of grit. Half the time I didn't even have my eyes open. Sand stung at me and my eyes were red and weeping. I plodded along, one foot after another. Cassius came back and put his arm around me and I locked my arm to his. We walked in a total whiteout, blinded by sand, for how long? I don't know. Time itself became a haze. The sun beat down despite the howling wind and the blowing sand and after a while my thirst became so great, my tiredness so awful and my aches and pains so unbearable that I started to halucinate and to wander within my mind. I saw again Calpurnia dying in that fetid hold. I saw the other girls, healthy and happy as they had been when we started out. They were all dead now and they were calling to me. I knew I would join them soon. By now Cassius was more dragging me along than helping me. I fell and lay on the sand, more or less sheltered from the wind, but he pulled me up again. I complained and told him to leave me but he got me under the arms and propelled me forward. I settled down to putting one foot after the other and walked on in a world of misery and nightmares. I was halucinating again and saw again the brothel in Rome where I had been as happy as I had ever been in a life that had offered little. I broke away from Cassius and started to hobble toward where my old friends were beckoning to me. He called out and shouted at me to stop. I saw the cool marble hall and the pools and fountains and the divans covered in rich rugs where the girls reclined. I broke into a shambling run and then the world vanished beneath me and I rolled over and over down a long black ramp, slipping, sliding, tumbling until I fell into another hole and went down and down and then I hit something solid and was knocked senseless.

*

I was dead.

Lying in stygian darkness and hurting.

Hurting!

I thought death removed all hurts.

I heard scrabbling and then Cassius's voice calling me.

"Barbanne. Barbanne. Where are you?"

Maybe I wasn't dead. I called back.

"Here. I am here."

My eyes were accustoming to the darkness and I saw his sandalled feet and then his legs and he started to come into view.

"Over here," I called.

His face came into view and then I could see him clearly and it was light. A powerful light filled the dark cavern into which I had fallen. A dark cavern that was somehow strangely smooth. Smooth as though fashioned by the hand of man. The light lit up everything and I saw the surprise on Cassius' face. I turned and saw that the light issued from an opening in the smooth wall behind me. A tall figure was silhouetted there. A tall robed figure.

"Barbanne, Cassius," the voice was rich, mellow and spoke in perfectly accented latin, "Welcome. Come in."

My system had had a bad few days and the fall and the storm and now this were all too much.

My mind spun and I felt horribly cold and then clammy and then cold again and I actually felt my blood drain into my legs and a wave of blackness rushed at me.

My eyes rolled backward into my skull and I pitched forward in a complete dead faint.

*

I woke as if from a deep and refreshing sleep. The first thing that my senses detected was that I smelt sweet and perfumed. A fragrance I did not know. Beautiful, light, the very essence of life. Without opening my eyes I felt my hair. It was soft and clean and spread out around my face. Still with my eyes closed I touched my body. It felt soft and lightly oiled and naked. I opened my eyes. I lay on a soft divan and I looked down at myself. My wounds had been treated and already they were fading. I was naked except for a light wrap around my middle. It covered my sex but that was about all. My upper body and legs were unclothed. I slowly sat up. While unconscious I had been washed and my wounds dressed and I had been given this loincloth to cover my intimacies. At the foot of the divan sat Cassius. He was dressed or rather undressed as was I. He too looked clean and oiled and totally refreshed. He smiled at me.

"Barbanne."

"Where is this? Where are we?"

My eyes saucered as I gazed around me. We were in a large room and the huge divan on which I sat, on which I had lain sleeping, was to one side. The room was strange. It had no straight surfaces, no angles or planes. The walls floor and ceiling curved and ran into each other to form a seamless ovoid. Light diffused from the very wall surfaces themselves. The material in which my loins were wrapped and which also covered the bed was light, filmy and white. The surfaces of the room were a gentle golden shade and the lighted surfaces glowed bluish.

A voice spoke.

"Welcome back Barbanne. We have worried about you. You have been badly treated. As for where you are, you are in our home."

I looked toward the voice. Deep, soft, feminine in a way which suggested all womanhood was encapsulated there. She was absolutely gorgeous and she was tall. Tall, slender and with rich, black hair and soft, slanting, brown eyes. Her gown looked like spun gold and covered her from breasts to toes, concealing and yet revealing a body of great beauty. I saw clearly her big brown nipples crowning perfect breasts and her dark vee. Her bare shoulders were perfectly sculpted and her face of utter beauty floated atop a long slender neck. She would have to have been half again as tall as me.

She wore a golden crown that looked familiar.

"Errmmm, so where is home and who are you?"

"Home is here and I am Nefertiti."

"Nefertiti? But she died years ago."

"Do I look dead?"

"No, but if you're not......................??"

"Then I am over thirteen hundred years old. Is that what you were going to say?"

"Well................"

"Much older than that Barbanne. Much older."

Another woman entered. Almost similar but far more voluptuous. Dressed similarly but if anything even more richly. She was utterly gorgeous and looked like Mother Earth. The Goddesses Ceres or Fauna could not have been more perfect. The woman who claimed to be Nefertiti indicated this newcomer with her outstretched hand.

"And this is Akhenaten."

"Akhenaten? But I thought he was a ........................"

"A man?? Clearly not Barbanne."

I thought I was going to pass out again and wobbled but Cassius gripped me.

"Cassius, what's happening?" I hadn't decided whether to flake out or not.

"Listen to the tale Nefertiti and Akhenaten have to tell, Barbanne. It is most strange."

*

Akhenaten turned to me.

"What do you know of Akhenaten and Nefertiti?" She asked.

"Why ask me? I'm just a stupid whore."

"Whore yes. Stupid no. We know you received a good education in the schools of Rome before you became what you are."

"Well, I tried to pick things up where I could."

"So what do you know?"

"Akhenaten was born Amenhotep IV in the Eighteenth Dynasty of the old Egyptian empire. On ascending the throne, he took the name Akhenaten and dismissed all of the gods of Egypt, claiming that there was only one god, the god Aten, the sun god. He moved the centre of power from the cities of Thebes and Memphis to his new capital Amarna. When he died the Egyptians destroyed this new city, obliterated the name of Akhenaten, and reinstated the old gods. He is always shown as being a strange being of almost feminine form. If what you say is true I can understand this. Nefertiti is recognised as having been the most beautiful woman the world has seen. Looking at the woman you claim to be Nefertiti I can understand this too. That is what is taught in the histories of Egypt and that is what I learned."

Akhenaten gestured at the wall of the room in which we were.

"When I said this is our home I spoke truly. What we are in is a vessel built for space travel and it is the craft in which Nefertiti and I came to your world. Our concept of time is not yours. Our race is all what you call female and our life spans would, to you, be immortal." She gestured. "Come."

We rose and walked through the wall of the room which slid aside silently and smoothly as we approached it. We were in another, bigger, room. Akhenaten gestured and a section of the wall darkened and pictures appeared. Pictures that moved. Amazing scenes.

"Our home is your sun. We came here to teach your people of the immortality they could achieve if they accepted and believed in our way. We are the Solarians and we are all feminine, self reproducing, and without sickness or death. We have slowly become aware of your ways, your wars and your diseases. We tried to change things by introducing our learning into what we saw as a highly advanced civilisation, here in Egypt. We were rejected and so we wait until the time comes again. Our ship is hidden within the sands and we are self-sufficient. For now we are few in number but more will eventually come."

As she spoke the pictures showed us life deep within the flaming ball of the sun. A life style that was truly the heaven of the gods.

"Why us?" I asked.

She looked at me.

"Why Cassius and I?"

"A mistake, my dear. You stumbled on us when we had the portal open as we do only once in a hundred of your years. Now that you are here we are going to send you forth as emissaries to spread our words. No one will believe you, but do not worry. You will pave the way for our second attempt to connect with your world."

I felt faint again as I struggled with this knowledge.

"So we are to go free?" Cassius looked at the two women.

"Yes."

"Do you not fear we may bring others back to this place?"

"You would never find it if you search for a thousand years."

"So we may go?"

"Indeed."

I became aware that Nefertiti was looking at me in a way that seemed as if she saw something deep within my very being. I looked back and our eyes met and I felt her within my head. I felt the force of her, so much greater than my own will that I made no attempt to put up a fight for control. I felt my mind open to hers and I saw the beginnings of the inflow of information which I was receiving and then as if my strings had been cut I swooned backwards onto the bed.

*

I woke slowly.

I rolled my head and saw Cassius lying a little distance away. I slowly sat up. My wounds were in fact healed but I was dressed again in the rags of my gown and the sandals I had taken from the dead guard. Cassius groaned and put his hand to his head. He looked over at me.

"Have I been dreaming?"

"If so we have dreamed the same dream."

"The Solarians?"

"Yes."

I looked around. We were on high ground overlooking the city of mudbrick buildings. Even as I watched I saw a line of figures issue forth from one of the buildings and set out across the dunes.

"Looks like company."

"Let's get scarce."

We set out down a dry gully that concealed us from the approaching warriors. That's what I was sure they were, warrior women from this city which had caused us so much woe. We stopped at the end of the gully and peered around. The column of women had left two guards under a palm tree and the rest of them had fanned out and were climbing the hill. The two guards had their backs to us and were only a matter of twenty metres away. Crouching we ran forward. We were upon them before they heard us. Cassius despatched one girl with a vicious chop to the neck and she collapsed onto the sand. The second girl turned and saw me and hissed, "You," before Cassius caught her from behind and drove her companion's sword into her spine. She coughed and blood trickled from her mouth and she quivered and died. We ran for the coast, or where we were sure the coast was.

We made quite a distance before a cry from behind told us we were discovered and turning briefly I saw the warriors in pursuit.

What followed was a nightmare chase across dunes and through gullies and scrub.

When it was over, Cassius and I were at the coast where the galley had been wrecked, six more warrior girls had gone to their own nirvana and we had outrun the remainder.

We hid in a sea cave for a week and during that time Cassius and I became true lovers. I realised as I shared my body with his that here was the man for me. I loved him with an intensity and fervor that I would not have believed I could feel for any man.

I filled in the little spare time when I was not making love to Cassius, patching and washing my one and only gown and wishing I had stripped a couple of those warrior girls we had left dead in the dunes behind us. Given how little they wore, two of them might have provided me with enough cloth for a decent pair of undies.

On the eighth day we saw a passing fishing vessel and waved to attract them and they took us to Alexandria. From there we took ship for Rome after first going before the procurator to be made man and wife.

*

In Rome we settled and set about bringing the message of the Solarians and their wish for contact with humankind, to as many people as we could.

Unfortunately for us the preachings of some dead Rabbi from Palestine had just started to catch on and our truths battled uphill with these supernatural myths. I explained to those who would listen that Akhenaten the Solarian had introduced the idea of one god, monotheism, that had grown to such a point that this new belief could feed on the idea, but they were not convinced. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I had received from Nefertiti, while unconscious and fully receptive, that the Solarians had foreseen this and that this new faith would take hold and persist for two thousand years before being destroyed by the perfidy of its own priests. At that time the truth of our place in the universe of the Solarians would become apparent.

Cassius stayed in the army for ten more years. He gave me three fine daughters. Two are married and my baby will wed soon.

I am an old woman now, already in my fortieth year and I will die soon. Cassius has weathered the years better and is a fine figure of a man. My girls and their husbands and our other faithful and their decendants will keep the truth alive until the time is right.

For myself, I have seen the truth. I have met the mistresses of the universe.

I will die happily knowing that our future is assured when finally we learn to open our senses to the truth.

The truth is out there.

......