<DIV><P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Mahu—former Chief of Police and Keeper of the Secrets of the Heart—is presiding over an uneasy quiet in the Royal Circle at Thebes following the disappearance of the Pharaoh Akenhaten and the abandonment of his new, sun-worshipping religion. Members of different factions are barely held together by loyalty to the six-year-old Emperor Tutankhamun when extraordinary news reaches the city: Akenhaten has returned to Egypt. The words are greeted with dismay by all who hear them, as Akenhaten is assumed to be dead, and Mahu can certainly vouch that the woman claiming to be the Emperor's wife is a fraud. The strange man claiming to be emperor who has appeared in the Delta must be investigated before the divergent factions rip the Egyptian empire asunder.</P></DIV>