“This pyramid is closest to Cairo, so we call it the First,” Monge said. He pointed at another. “The Second. The farthest is the Third. If we could but read the hieroglyphs, we could perhaps know their true labels.”

He agreed. No one could understand the strange signs that appeared on nearly every one of the ancient monuments. He’d ordered them copied, so many drawings that his artists had expended all of the pencils brought from France. It had been Monge who devised an ingenious way to melt lead bullets into Nile reeds and fashion more.

“There may be hope there,” he said.

And he caught Monge’s knowing nod.

They both knew that an ugly black stone found at Rosetta, inscribed with three different scripts-hieroglyphs, the language of ancient Egypt, demotic, the language of current Egypt, and Greek-might prove the answer. Last month he’d attended a session of his Institut Egypt, created by him to encourage his savants, where the discovery had been announced.

But much more study was needed.

“We are making the first systematic surveys of these sites,” Monge said. “All who came before us simply looted. We shall memorialize what we find.”

Another revolutionary idea, Napoleon thought. Fitting for Monge.

“Take me inside,” he ordered.

His friend led him up a ladder on the north face, to a platform twenty meters high. He’d come this far once before, months ago, with some of his commanders, when they’d first inspected the pyramids. But he’d refused to enter the edifice since it would have required him to crawl on all fours before his subordinates. Now he bent down and wiggled into a corridor no more than a meter high and equally as wide, which descended at a mild gradient through the pyramid’s core. The leather satchel swung from his neck. They came to another corridor hewn upward, which Monge entered. The gradient now climbed, heading toward a lighted square at the far end.

They emerged and were able to stand, the wondrous site filling him with reverence. In the flickering glow of oil lamps he spied a ceiling that rose nearly ten meters. The floor steeply planed upward through more granite masonry. Walls projected outward in a series of cantilevers that built on each other to form a narrow vault.

“It is magnificent,” he whispered.

“We’ve started calling it the Grand Gallery.”

“An appropriate label.”

At the foot of each sidewall a flat-topped ramp, half a meter wide, extended the length of the gallery. A passage measuring another meter ran between the ramps. No steps, just a steep incline.

“Is he up there?” he asked Monge.

“Oui, Général. He arrived an hour ago and I led him to the King’s Chamber.”

He still clung to the satchel. “Wait outside, below.”

Monge turned to leave, then stopped. “Are you sure you wish to do this alone?”

He kept his eyes locked ahead on the Grand Gallery. He’d listened to the Egyptian tales. Supposedly, through the mystic passageways of this pyramid had passed the illuminati of antiquity, individuals who’d entered as men and emerged as gods. This was a place of “second birth,” a “womb of mysteries,” it was said. Wisdom dwelled here, as God dwelled in the hearts of men. His savants wondered what fundamental urge had inspired this Herculean engineering labor, but for him there could be but one explanation-and he understood the obsession-the desire to exchange the narrowness of human mortality for the breadth of enlightenment. His scientists liked to postulate how this may be the most perfect building in the world, the original Noah’s Ark, maybe the origin of languages, alphabets, weights, and measures.

Not to him.

This was a gateway to the eternal.

“It is only I who can do this,” he finally muttered.

Monge left.

He swiped grit from his uniform and strode ahead, climbing the steep grade. He estimated its length at about 120 meters and he was winded when he reached the top. A high step led into a low-ceilinged gallery that flowed into an antechamber, three walls of which were cut granite.

The King’s Chamber opened beyond, more walls of polished red stone, the mammoth blocks fitted so close only a hairbreadth remained between them. The chamber was a rectangle, about half as wide as long, hollowed from the pyramid’s heart. Monge had told him that there may well be a relationship between the measurements of this chamber and some time-honored mathematical constants.

He did not doubt the observation.

Flat slabs of granite formed a ceiling ten meters above. Light seeped in from two shafts that pierced the pyramid from the north and the south. The room was empty save for a man and a rough, unfinished granite sarcophagus without a lid. Monge had mentioned how the tubular drill and saw marks from the ancient workmen could still be seen on it. And he was right. He’d also reported that its width was less than a centimeter greater than the width of the ascending corridor, which meant it had been placed here before the rest of the pyramid was built.

The man, facing the far wall, turned.

His shapeless body was draped in a loose surtout, his head wrapped in a wool turban, a length of calico across one shoulder. His Egyptian ancestry was evident, but remnants of other cultures remained in a flat forehead, high cheekbones, and broad nose.

Napoleon stared at the deeply lined face.

“Did you bring the oracle?” the man asked him.

He motioned to the leather satchel. “I have it.”

Napoleon emerged from the pyramid. He’d been inside for nearly an hour and darkness had now swallowed the Giza plain. He’d told the Egyptian to wait inside before leaving.

He swiped more dust from his uniform and straightened the leather satchel across his shoulder. He found the ladder and fought to control his emotions, but the past hour had been horrific.

Monge waited on the ground, alone, holding the reins of Napoleon’s horse.

“Was your visit satisfactory, mon Général?”

He faced his savant. “Hear me, Gaspard. Never speak of this night again. Do you understand me? No one is to know I came here.”

His friend seemed taken aback by his tone.

“I meant no offense-”

He held up a hand. “Never speak of it again. Do you understand me?”

The mathematician nodded, but he caught Monge’s gaze as he glanced past him, upward, to the top of the ladder, at the Egyptian, waiting for Napoleon to leave.

“Shoot him,” he whispered to Monge.

He caught the shock on his friend’s face, so he pressed his mouth close to the academician’s ear. “You love to tote that gun. You want to be a soldier. Then it is time. Soldiers obey their commander. I don’t want him leaving this place. If you don’t have the guts, then have it done. But know this. If that man is alive tomorrow, our glorious mission on behalf of the exalted Republic will suffer the tragic loss of a mathematician.”

He saw the fear in Monge’s eyes.

“You and I have done much together,” Napoleon made clear. “We are indeed friends. Brothers of the so-called Republic. But you do not want to disobey me. Not ever.”

He released his grip and mounted the horse.

“I am going home, Gaspard. To France. To my destiny. May you find yours, as well, here, in this godforsaken place.”