Eyes of Horus — Joan Grant

The third of Joan Grant's "Far Memory" novels, Eyes of Horus, set in Egypt at the close of the dark XIth Dynasty, is a profound commentary on the power of fear and the unlimited ability of light to shatter it. Eyes of Horus is the story, told in the first person, of Ra-ab, heir to the Nomarch of the Oryx, one of eighteen provinces in Egypt. He comes to learn that the Oryx is different than the rest of Egypt-it is still in touch with the light. The rest of Egypt is plagued by fear and ruled by corruption. Pharaoh is an ineffectual ruler. The priests have replaced the worship of Ptah with the worship of Set. Only the Oryx has cast off these shackles-and it is from the Oryx that a silent brotherhood of the 'eyes of Horus'-the Watchers of the Horizon-arises, to work and wait for the dawn of a new age in Egypt. 'Send Fear into Exile', is the Watchers' password, and when the time is ripe, Ra-ab leads the Oryx and its followers to victory-and a new Egypt. As a child growing up in Edwardian England, Joan Grant became aware of an astonishing ability to remember previous lifetimes, and as an author professed her seven novels to be based on her personal recollections of other incarnations, male and female, in ancient civilisations.