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depression, amid a pile of discarded building stone, watching the chanting priests, were a half dozen figures—Nosferatu and the other five half-breeds. They clutched the sharp daggers the strange human woman had given them in sweaty hands. It was the Ceremony of the Summer Solstice, and the priests were thanking the Gods for a bountiful crop produced by the rich soil along the banks of the Nile and for keeping away the floods that occasionally ravaged the land.

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    It had occurred to Nosferatu during his long time underground that humans had never thought to question the power of the Gods when the floods did come. They would blame themselves, believing they had transgressed against the Gods in some manner, and pray even harder. The entire concept of worship and religion was something he found strange and most convenient for the Airlia. Behind it all was the tantalizing promise the Airlia had made so long ago on Atlantis—that the true believers would one day be granted immortality via the Grail. It had not happened yet, but again, the high priests told the people that was because they had not believed hard enough and been faithful enough.
    Now the six waited, hunched over among the stones, for the ceremony to be finished. They were patient because their goal was the ultimate prize, that which generations of priests such as these had prayed for but which the six of them had decided to seize this night: eternal life. They had escaped from the Roads via an entrance on the bank of the Nile and made their way back here under the cover of darkness. For Nosferatu every breath of the fresh night air was a revelation, the canopy of stars overhead a wonderment to his eyes. The gifts of his Airlia genes combined with years of living in the pitch-black of his tube allowed him to see in the starlight as if it were daylight. He wondered what else he had gained from the Airlia that made him different from humans.
    "Will the Gods be here?" Nosferatu asked.
    "Isis and Osiris have come to give the final blessing every year as long as any can remember," Vampyr whispered in reply. "I saw them myself at this ceremony before I was taken below with my sister."
    Isis and Osiris were the two principal Gods. There were four other Airlia—
    Horus, Amun, Khons, and Seb—but

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    they appeared even more rarely. It had been many years since all six had been seen together on the surface. For many years Nosferatu had only been visited by one of the Gods. When others showed up, perhaps coming out of the deep sleep that Donnchadh had mentioned, the others like him were made and imprisoned.
    Nosferatu's mother had told him that his father was Horus and Nosferatu believed it to be true because that was the only one of the five that did not take blood from him during the feedings. In the same manner, Nekhbet's father had never taken from her.
    The chanting paused as two figures appeared in the dark entryway. They were tall, thin, and unnaturally proportioned. From the forms it was obvious they were male and female but as they pulled back their hoods it was also obvious they were not human. Catlike red eyes peered down at the priests. White alabaster skin glistened in the glow of the torches. Elongated ears drooped on either side of their narrow heads. And when the male of the pair raised his right hand in acknowledgment of the priests' prayers, six long fingers, festooned with jewels, waved their blessings.
    Nosferatu recognized them from the thousands of times they had come to his cell and fed from Nekhbet and him. They were Isis and Osiris, the Goddess and the High Protector of Egypt, who had ruled from beneath the ground for over two thousand years. Egypt had prospered under their reign, the borders expanding down the green belt of the Nile and west and east to the edges of the desert. It was the cradle of civilization, the place where the majority of the survivors of the fall of Atlantis had been brought by the Gods. Beyond the borders of the Gods'