River God: Ancient Egypt. Land of the Pharaohs. A kingdom built on gold. A legend shattered by greed. Now the Valley of the Kings lies ravaged by war, drained of its lifeblood as weak men inherit the cherished crown. In the city of Thebes at the Festival of Osiris, loyal subjects of the Pharaoh gather to pay homage to their leader. But Taita - a wise and formidably gifted eunuch slave, sees him only as a symbol of a kingdom's fading glory. Beside Taita stand his proteges, Lostris, daughter of Lo...rd Intef, beautiful beyond her fourteen years; and Tanus, proud, young army officer, who has vowed to avenge the death - at Intef's hand - of his father, and seize Lostris as his prize. Together they share a dream - to restore the majesty of the Pharaoh of Pharaohs on the glittering banks of the Nile.
Gold Mine: 'Big King was at the shaft station when they heard the water coming. It sounded like an express train in a tunnel, a dull bellow of irresistible power. The water was pushing the air from the drive ahead of it, so that a hurricane of wind came roaring from the mouth of the drive, blowing out a cloud of dust and loose rubbish.' Rod Ironsides, ambitious and hard-living mining expert, knows that the general managership of the Sonder Ditch gold mine is the chance of a lifetime. But the price of unquestioning obedience to the coldly obsessive genius of Dr Manfred Steyner proves impossible to pay. Both men are but unwitting tools of powerful people for whom the control of a gold mine is only part of the realization of dreams and ambitions which include the destruction of the very mine itself . .