The night watch had become my world. While the other eunuchs slept on hard mats, I walked the corridors with a clay jar in my arms—corridors that by day belonged to priests, guards, and the noise of offerings. At night they were empty, filled only with the echo of my steps and the faint crackle of lamps.
The northern hall, entrusted to me by Panes, was vast as the inside of a mountain. Rows of columns rose into the dark ceiling where painted gods faded into shadow. Each lamp was a small fiery eye guarding the silence.
I poured oil, drop by drop. Recorded how much was spent. Every vessel was a sign, every flame a number that had to balance. But when I was done and sat on the step, my eyes climbed higher.
The columns.
I had never looked at them so closely. By day they were hidden by crowds, banners, and incense smoke. But at night, when only the small flames burned, the lines of stone revealed themselves. I saw how their width changed—narrower above, broader at the base. They were not mere stones stacked on stones. They were calculated balance, holding up the ceiling so it would not fall.
With my finger I traced their shape into the dust. Broad foundation, tapering shaft, lotus capitals. It was beautiful, but also precise.
Each night I noticed something new. How the space between columns was always the same. How the ceiling was divided into squares, each painting forming a pattern, not random images. How corridors met at right angles, never skewed.
I had no papyrus to record it. But I had memory. I repeated it like the signs Panes had drilled into me. One column, two columns, distance equal. Lotus capital, papyrus capital. Pattern—square, rectangle, square again.
At first it was only silent pleasure. A world that belonged only to me. But the more nights I spent among those walls, the more I felt that I saw what others ignored.
One night I noticed a crack high on the wall. Not large—just a thin line invisible in daylight. But I watched how it stretched toward the corner, and I told myself: if the stones press longer, it will break one day.
It was the same certainty I had felt when I showed Panes the cracked stone in the mosaic.
And so I began keeping my own "ledger" in my head. Not of oil, but of stone.
—
On the fourth week, when I brought Panes the tablet of oil usage, he asked without looking up:
"And do the lamps burn?"
"They burn," I said, "but the wall in the northern corner has a crack. Sand has crumbled from the mortar. In two years the stone will loosen."
His reed pen froze. For the first time, his eyes rose. "What did you say?"
"The crack. Above the third column capital. It isn't large, but it's growing. I saw it last night."
Panes set down the pen and folded his hands. He looked at me so long I felt I had crossed a forbidden line.
At last he stood. "Come."
He led me through the corridors into the northern hall. I showed him the corner. Panes raised a lamp, casting light. There it was indeed—a thin fissure in the stone. Something even a building overseer might miss.
Panes turned to me. In his eyes was something different than usual. Not just scrutiny, but recognition.
"And you saw this… while tending oil?"
I nodded.
He was silent. Then he said: "Do you know what an architect is?"
I shook my head.
"He is the one who sees what others cannot. He knows where the stone holds and where it breaks. He knows where the light will fall and where darkness stays. He knows how the gods stand within the temple. You have the eyes of an architect."
The words etched deeper into my memory than any sign.
When we returned to the papyrus chamber, Panes placed not an account sheet before me, but a drawing. A temple ground plan, lines of columns, numbers and marks I only partly knew.
"If you truly have the eyes of an architect," he said, "then you will learn this. From today, you will not only count oil. You will count stone as well."
The papyrus Panes placed before me was unlike anything I had ever seen. Lines and markings spread across it as if the temple itself had been pressed into ink. Rectangles, squares, circles, and beside them small signs, some of which I only partly recognized.
"This is the ground," Panes said, running his finger along a line. "Here the wall. Here the gate. Here the courtyard."
I bent closer, trying to follow his movement. At first it looked like a puzzle of lines. But the longer I looked, the more I recognized. There—four rows of squares. Columns. There—a wide rectangle. The hall.
"You see," Panes said softly, "a temple is built twice. First in the mind, and then in stone. If the first is flawed, the second will fall."
He lifted his reed pen, drew a line, and wrote a number beside it. "This is a cubit. The measure of a king's arm. Every length in the temple must bow to this law."
From a leather case he pulled a thin wooden rod etched with divisions. "This is the royal cubit. Palm, finger. Learn them. Without measure, there is no form."
He handed it to me. My fingers trembled slightly as I held it. Panes pushed another papyrus toward me. "Mark six cubits. Then twelve. Then show me half of twelve."
I breathed deeply. Counted the marks on the rod and drew the line. Six. Twelve. Half.
"Correct," he said. "Now do the same for width—three cubits—and then assign the height. What shape do you get?"
"A rectangle," I answered.
"And when you give three cubits width and three in height?"
"A square."
He nodded. "The square is perfection. The rectangle is strength. The circle is eternity. A temple needs all three to please both gods and men."
For the entire evening he gave me tasks. Lines, measures, divisions. Each answer was another step; each mistake another stab of his gaze. He was not harsh with words—he was harsh with silence.
When at last I dared to ask: "Master, why do you teach me this?"
Panes looked at me as though weighing whether to answer. Then he said: "Because you are eyes that know how to see. And a temple needs more eyes than it has priests. To teach you is like repairing a stone—if I use you rightly, you will bear weight."
That night I returned to the eunuchs' quarters with a mind heavy as stone, yet bright as an oil flame. I no longer saw only lamps and numbers. I saw a line becoming a wall. A shape becoming a hall. A thought becoming a temple.
The next day Panes did not call me to the chamber. He took me straight to the courtyard where the columns rose. Sunlight blazed, and the stone glared white.
"Yesterday you drew lines," Panes said. "Today you will draw in your mind."
We stopped before a row of columns. "How many cubits between them?" he asked.
I frowned. I had never measured them, only observed. But I remembered the steps I had taken at night while carrying oil. "Four cubits," I answered.
Panes nodded and moved to the next pair. "And here?"
"Also four," I said, more confidently.
He pulled out the wooden cubit rod and had the overseers measure. It was exact.
"Good," said Panes. "Memory is the foundation of the builder's eye. Now tell me—if a column is one cubit wide, how tall must it be to look strong?"
I thought. In my mind appeared the shape I had seen in the northern hall. "Ten cubits."
"Why ten?"
"Because if less, it looks heavy and squat. If more, it looks thin and weak."
Panes smiled faintly. "Not a bad answer. Architecture is not only numbers, but the eye. Ten is a good ratio. Remember it."
Then he handed me a small wax tablet and stylus. "Draw the ground plan of the northern hall. From memory."
My hands trembled. I had never done such a thing. But I closed my eyes and imagined the night lamps. Rows of columns I had walked between. Patterns of squares on the ceiling. The corner with the crack.
I began to draw. First the rough rectangle. Then the rows of squares—four, four, four. The gate leading inside.
When I was done, I gave the tablet to Panes. He studied it for a long time. Then, without a word, he sketched the true plan in the dust and set mine beside it. It was not perfect—some distances wrong, the corners crooked. But the main lines were right.
"Not bad," he said at last. "Not precise, but the eye is there. You will learn to straighten the line. You will learn to count the distance, not only feel it. But you have the foundation."
He placed his hand on my shoulder. "You are still a eunuch, a slave, a shadow. But remember—even a shadow can become a measure, if it learns to follow the light."
The words carved themselves deep inside me. It was not praise the court would hear. But for me, it was the first time I felt I held a future in my hands.
When I returned to the eunuchs' quarters that evening, I felt their eyes on me. They lay on their mats, whispering among themselves, and when I walked past, the whisper turned to muffled laughter.
"Look, Panes' little scribe," one said. "Doesn't even carry oil anymore, now he draws lines like a great priest."
"Maybe he thinks he'll build a pyramid someday," another added. "Too bad he hasn't got the balls to climb it."
Laughter. Sharp, brief, like the crack of a stick.
I stayed silent. I sat in my place and pulled out the wax tablet to practice the lines I had drawn. But their voices pierced me from all sides.
"What's he scratching now? A sign for a dog? Or for his own hole?"
"Don't say that—he'll run to Panes and you'll get twelve lashes."
They were only words, but in the chamber where we all slept packed like fish in a net, words carried weight. And I knew that one day they could be more than words.
The next day, when I carried the lamps, I found a stone placed by my jar—set so that it would break if I lifted carelessly. Another time, one eunuch deliberately kicked my foot as I walked with the wax tablet. They laughed when I stumbled.
I never told Panes. I knew he would only wave it aside. "A shadow must not fight shadows," he would have said. And he would be right.
So I kept silent and observed. Each mockery I swallowed like a bitter drink. Each slight I stored in memory.
But inside I felt that their jealousy was proof. Proof that I was no longer like them. That I had crossed a line they never would.
That night, as I poured oil again, I looked up at the columns and smiled to myself. They could call me a dog, mock me, trip me. But the columns stood silent, remembering only the one who could raise them.
And I knew that one day, they would remember me too.
On the third day Panes summoned me into the chamber and laid a papyrus before me. It was a plan of a temple annex—walls, columns, corridors. The lines looked firm, but I already knew that not everything drawn on papyrus could stand in stone.
"Find the mistake," he said.
I studied the papyrus. At first I saw nothing. Just lines and numbers that seemed correct. But Panes was silent, waiting. I knew this was no game—it was a test.
I closed my eyes and imagined the structure. Walking through it. Through the gate, into the courtyard, between the columns, into the hall. And there I saw it.
"Here," I pointed to the corner of the wall. "If they place the column here, it will press against the wall. The wall will crack."
Panes leaned in, following my hand. For a moment he was silent. Then he took the reed pen and circled the spot I had indicated.
"Correct," he said. "The builder miscalculated the distance. Had you not seen it, the wall would not have lasted ten years."
He set down the pen. "Remember— a wall is like a man. Alone it stands upright, but when pressed from outside, it needs support. Without it, it breaks."
His voice was cold, yet in it was something I had never felt before—respect.
The next day he took me to the building site. Stones were already being laid, columns raised with ropes. Stone slid, men shouted, sticks cracked down.
"Watch," Panes said, "and tell me where the work will slow."
I watched as the porters hauled the block. One rope too tight, the other too slack. The angle wrong.
"There," I pointed. "The stone will catch."
Moments later it did, hanging in the air. The men cursed and had to shift the rope.
Panes stood silently. Then he turned to me. "Your eye is sharper than I expected."
It was the first time he had said something so openly. Perhaps the overseers and workers did not hear, but I knew those words carried more weight than any praise