People are accustomed to perceiving life either as a series of accidents or as the result of their own volitional efforts. What if everything is completely different, and our desires were formed long before us, and our possibilities are strictly limited by our destiny? Otherwise, what could connect the “gray mouse,” Katya, with the blind girl Hetty, who once lived in Ancient Egypt?.. Or, in the past, a military officer, and now an entrepreneur Andrei with Merhu, the commandant of the Semna fortress on the border of the Red and Black Earth?.. And what can connect them all with each other?.. Of course, nothing... at first glance, nothing... In addition to the story “The Egyptian,” the collection includes other stories by Sergei Dubyansky - “The Yulia Effect”, “Love at Second Sight”, “The Loop” and the “Law of Cyclicity.”