by Brian Lumley
A handmaiden at the tent’s entrance bowed low and kissed the hand that the queen held out to her. Before entering, Ashtarta turned to where Imthra had paused. “When the messenger comes, you will bring him to me?”
“Of course, Candace.” Bowing, the old magician began to back away.
“And Imthra—”
“Majesty?”
“While we are waiting, perhaps you would give some thought to the meaning of my vision?”
“Majesty,” he bowed his obedience.
“And to the meaning of your own—” she continued, piercing him through with her gaze, “whatever it was. . . .”
As the queen turned from him and entered into the scented luxury of her tent, Imthra bowed one last time, shivering as he felt the first chill of evening creeping into his old bones. He should consider the meaning of his vision, should he? Little need of that when the messenger, who would be here soon enough, would doubtless be able to explain it for him. And not, he was sure, to his liking.
So the old man turned away from Ashtarta’s tent and made for his own less sumptuous apartment, a low, black affair with four poles, numerous silver symbols sewn into the walls, and black tassels hanging from each corner. He supposed he might look into his shewstone; there might just be something to see in there, but he doubted it. His eyes were of little use now for the scrying of mysteries, and his mind not much better. As for the vision he had seen in the pool: what interpretation could he possibly place on it except the obvious one?
He had seen Khai, yes. He had seen him stretched flat on his back on a bed of funerary black, with baleful blue fumes rising from seven encircling censers while chanting wizards in strangely horned, pschent-like headdress performed an ancient rite. It was a ceremony old as time itself, come down from predawn days before Khem and Kush, Therae and Nubia, before ever the first tribes of the hills and valleys came from the East and the South to settle in and around the valley of the Nile. The time-lost ice-priests of primordial Khrissa had known it and the long-headed Lords of Lemuria—whose alien blood, it was rumored, ran even now in the veins of Khem’s pharaohs—and it had been practiced, too, in legended Ardlanthys.
And Imthra had known the ceremony immediately, even though it was not practiced by the people of Kush. He had recognized it despite certain basic anomalies, despite one highly peculiar circumstance. It was that rite with which the Khemites sent the ka of a dead person winging on its way into the next world—except that from the slow rise and fall of Khai’s chest, Imthra had known that the young general was not yet dead!
III
MANEK THOTAK
Almost two hundred miles away and a few miles west of the Nile—beyond vast, blasted areas of savannah, marshland and forest, where all the trees were now flattened down or snapped off at their bases and the grass was blackened stubble—there the Pharaoh Khasathut had built Asorbes, his titan-walled city and stronghold.
The heart of the city was a golden pyramid, almost complete now, whose base covered twenty-three acres. Built of fifteen million tons of yellow stone, it towered to a height of almost six hundred feet. In a later age, its tumbled and scattered blocks of vastly-hewn limestone would be floated almost three hundred miles downriver and utilized in building the lesser monument which one day men would call the “great” pyramid, ranking it as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Khasathut’s pyramid itself would not survive the ages, no, but if it had then surely it must be the first of all such wonders.
Central in all the lands of the Pharaoh—which until recently had consisted of the entire Nile Delta and Valley from the Mediterranean to the fourth cataract, and from the Red Sea to the swamps, forests and savannahs of the west—Asorbes stood huge and until now impregnable. Khasathut had used the crocodile-infested swamps as a buffer against the resurgent mountain tribes of Kush, whose people in their thousands he had once enslaved for the building and maintenance of his fortress city and pyramid tomb, a task which had absorbed him and destroyed them for years untold. There were few Kushite slaves in Asorbes now, for they had refused to breed for the Pharaoh and their blood had finally run out; but it had been the blood of a proud and fierce race and the Kings and Candaces of Kush would never rest until the agonized ghosts of their people no longer cried out for red revenge.
Now the savannahs were razed to naked earth, the forests laid waste and the swamps magically dried up from the city’s west wall as far as the eye could see. Now, too, half of the army of Kush laid triumphant siege on the city and awaited orders from Ashtarta; and yet there was no rejoicing among the grim warriors without the walls. In the hour of his triumph the general Khai had been kidnapped, taken by the enemy and smuggled away into Asorbes by the black wizards of Khem. His fellow general, Manek Thotak, had bargained with Khasathut for Khai’s life, and the Pharaoh’s terms had been a truce in exchange for the young general’s freedom. A truce, and the withdrawal of Ashtarta’s army from Khem’s ravished territories.
Manek Thotak, acting on his own initiative, had accepted these terms; but when Khai was lowered from the walls of Asorbes into the hands of his men, then it was seen that he was stricken with a strange malady. He was not dead, but it was as if he were.
Nevertheless, the Pharaoh had honored his part of the agreement, however deviously, and so Manek Thotak immediately ordered the withdrawal of Kush’s army; and knowing of Ashtarta’s love for Khai, he made preparations for the stricken general’s immediate return to Kush. Manek had overestimated his authority, however, with those tribes previously under Khai’s control, especially his Nubians. The chiefs of his impis refused to lift the siege but determined instead to wait outside the city’s massive walls for Ashtarta’s decision.
Doubtless the Candace would feel obliged to accept the terms arranged by Manek Thotak, but if she did not . . . Khai Ibizin’s legions would wait here, beneath the walls of Asorbes, until word came back to them from the queen herself. If that word was peace—then, however, reluctantly, they would leave.
But if it was war . . .
Many miles beyond the dried-out swamps and shattered forests, hurrying westward, Manek Thotak led fifty men across a shriveled wasteland which recently was a sweeping savannah. He rode in a chariot alongside one of his lieutenants, while to the rear his men rode ponies and kept watch over a central cart in which, on a pile of soft furs and linens, the waxen form of Khai Ibizin bounced without injury as the cart sped over rough ground.
Manek had left his eighty thousand warriors in a temporary camp a mile or so inside the dead forest’s border, within a clearing of sundered, shattered trees. There he had led them—many of them crowded into horsedrawn carts, a few riding in two-man chariots, the rest on foot or seated two-astride the backs of sturdy hill ponies—and there he had bade them wait. Then, setting off with his fifty men and the cart containing Khai, Manek had sent a lone rider on ahead to warn of his coming and to prepare the Candace for a great shock. The war with Khem was all but won, but the general Khai was lost.
Manek had known well enough not to leave his regiments camped too close to the general Khai’s troops, for that would surely have caused unnecessary problems. The armies were, after all, gathered together from three separate nations comprised of many different tribes; and it was bad enough to have Khai’s men refuse his authority in the matter of the siege without further exacerbating matters. His own troops would not take kindly to the fact that Khai’s men had seen fit to ignore his orders. Since many of these little kings were recent rivals, they might well turn upon each other in his absence; and so he moved his regiments to their present location.
During that move, they had trampled a front two-and-a-half miles wide, with flanks half a mile deep. Now, by comparison, Manek felt almost naked. His fifty men seemed like a mere handful; this despite the fact that he knew there was nothing this side of the Nile which could possibly threaten him. All of these lands now belonged to the Candace, should she desire them. But Manek believed she would honor his arrangements with
the Pharaoh. She was an honorable woman and must surely see that if he had not come to some agreement with Khasathut, then Khai Ibizin would now be dead.
As it was, the general Khai lived—if such a condition could properly be called life—but he could no more command Ashtarta’s armies than could a puling babe. More to the point, he was no longer a contender for the Queen’s hand, no longer a threat to Manek Thotak’s own ambitions.
Manek ordered his driver to rein back until the cart carrying Khai drew up alongside. He looked down at the stricken general and a frown creased his high brow beneath the rim of his bronze war helmet. “Aye, old rival,” he said under his breath, “and now see what you have come to. . . . You were always her favorite and knew it, though I never guessed it and you never hinted. She loved both of us—but me as a brother. You—” he grated his teeth and ordered his driver to speed on ahead once more, “—you she loved as a man, for your pale skin, your fair hair. And how well will she love you now, I wonder, with your slack mouth and vacant, staring eyes?”
“I see from the set of your jaw, Lord,” said Manek’s driver, “your pain at seeing the general Khai lying so still. What ails him, I wonder? Is it some disease contracted in the Pharaoh’s cells within Asorbes’ walls—or is it some device of Khasathut’s black magicians?”
“Why do you ask me?” Manek rounded on him. “Are there not enough problems without your search for more? Leave the general Khai be. What can be done for him will be done. Concern yourself with your driving. I’m sore from the night’s ride. Never have I suffered such a bruising!”
“My Lord, I only—”
“Be quiet!” ordered Manek. “And look,” he changed the subject, “did I not see the flash of a mirror from the hills just then?”
“Aye, Lord. The mirrors have been talking for an hour or more. Since the rising of the sun. In a little while, within the hour, we will reach the camp of the Candace. Even now she awaits your coming with the general Khai, for our horseman carried your word to her last night, since when she has not slept but waited for you. The mirrors have told all of this, but you have not been watching. Your mind has been busy with more important things and so you have not seen the mirrors talking or read their messages.”
“Aye, you are right.” Manek saw little point in denying it. “My mind has been with the general Khai. He was a warrior among warriors.”
“He surely was, Lord, even if he was a Khemite! Will there be a cure for him, do you think?”
“I think not!” Manek harshly answered. Then, seeing the surprised look on his driver’s face, he added: “What use to bolster false hopes? You can see him there and know he lies as one dead. Indeed, he is dying. But if the doctors of Kush can save him, then he will be saved. Now let it be, my friend, and concentrate on your driving. Take me home to the hills of Kush. To Kush . . . and to the Queen who waits there.”
IV
IN THE QUEEN’S TENT
It was early afternoon. All through the morning Manek Thotak had been questioned by the Candace—almost to the point of interrogation—and to little or no avail. The three royal physicians had attended Khai on his couch in Ashtarta’s tent, and as a man had proclaimed him poisoned and on the brink of death. One of them, Hathon-al, had said he thought it just possible that the general was possessed of demons, and that perhaps they could be let out by boring a small hole in his head.
Trepanning was an operation with which Hathon-al was acquainted; his father had performed a similar exorcism on a young woman some thirty years ago. Because of the intervening years, however, he was not completely sure of the postures and incantations; but still he was perfectly willing to try. He would use only the most beneficent postures, and his brother physicians might care to join him in the utterance of their favorite and most curative incantations.
Ashtarta, who like her father before her had little faith in the healing magic of the physicians, had ordered them out of her tent. Theirs was a mixture of magic and science not at all to the Queen’s liking. She could accept magic for its own sake—indeed, she had ample proof of the efficacy of many forms of the mystic arts—but she suspected that the doctors were mere amateurs in occult matters. All well and good that they should mend broken bones and sew up gashes, but when the soul itself was injured . . .? The true mages, on the other hand, had earned Ashtarta’s respect in more ways than one; and now, acting on Imthra’s advice, she called them to her tent.
There were seven of them in all, their number signifying the Seven Mystic Arts of the Ancient Ones—those mighty God-magicians who came from the stars with all knowledge at a time lost in the world’s dim and terrible infancy—and it was as a direct result of the incredible efforts of the seven that the balance of the war with Khem had swung in Ashtarta’s favor, when their magic had stemmed dark forces which had changed the face of Africa for thousands of years to come and which, but for them, had perhaps blasted the whole world forever!
At the onset of Kush’s latest offensive the seven had gone into the most inaccessible regions of the Gilf Kebir, and there they had remained in a secret place, using their long-range magic whenever the armies of Kush most needed their aid. Now a dozen riders were out looking for them, with orders to bring them to the Candace at once; and while she waited for their arrival, which might not be for several days, Ashtarta questioned Imthra about their powers.
These were Alkhemy (the old man explained), which did not originate in Khem at all but had been old when the Nile was a mere streamlet; Fascination, or hypnotism; Necromancy, or communication with the dead; Pyromancy and the control of elemental fires; Oneiromancy, or the interpretation of dreams; Elementalism, the control of the elementals of air, earth and water; and finally Mentalism, the use of the mind as a physical power. All of these arts were embodied in the seven mages to one degree or another; and Imthra himself, having been a student of the Ancient Wisdom all of his long life, understood something of them all.
As Imthra’s interpretation of the arts of the seven grew more complicated and detailed, the general Manek Thotak sat on his chair and listened intently. Though sunken-eyed, the young general seemed very alert for a man who must by now be greatly in need of sleep, and plainly he was absorbing all that was being said. This almost anxious interest of his did not go unnoticed by Ashtarta, who put it down to the fact that Manek shared her own great concern for Khai Ibizin’s well-being. And yet . . . she had been far from satisfied with Manek’s version of Khai’s misadventures, and even less satisfied with the truce he had arranged with the Pharaoh.
Now, as Imthra began to define the powers of mentalism—which in a later age would be known variously as telepathy, telekinesis, levitation and so on, and grouped under ESP in general—she put up a hand to stop him. She, too, was very tired, and Imthra’s droning voice was making her even more so.
“Later, later,” she told the old man. “For the moment I would speak again with the general.”
“Ashtarta,” Manek immediately responded, straightening up in his chair and granting himself the familiarity of first-name terms, “I feel I must offend you by my presence. The dust and grime of travel are still on me. I am unwashed and uncouth. Perhaps if I were to—”
“You do not offend,” she cut him off, “nor have you ever. But indeed I am sure that your weariness has dulled your mind and tongue, for still I find the things you have told me unsatisfactory. Explain to me once more, if you will, how the general Khai comes to be in his present condition. Leave nothing out, for the future of all Khem—if indeed the Land of the Pharaoh has a future—surely lies in the balance.”
The three of them were seated about the body of Khai where he lay as one dead upon his couch, and now Imthra sighed and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers on his chest and relaxing for the moment. In her present mood, the Candace was most demanding. He had suffered her angry ranting, her furious, frustrated sobbing and impatient questioning, for some hours. Now it was Manek Thotak’s turn once more and Imthra was glad to be off t
he hook.
As of yet, the Candace seemed to have forgotten that she had ordered him to provide interpretations of their dreams at the Pool of Yith-Shesh, for which he was grateful. While her dream had been very difficult to understand and probably full of symbolism, his own had been fairly easy; but he knew that if he told it to Ashtarta, and if he so much as hinted at its meaning as he suspected it, then that she would be heartbroken. Better first to let the seven mages see Khai, and then to tell them of that ominous vision glimpsed in the flames of the cavern pool.
So, while Imthra sat and wrapped himself tiredly in his own thoughts, Ashtarta prompted her general again, saying: “Well, Manek? I am waiting.”
“Majesty,” he answered, “I’ve already told you everything there is to—”
“Tell me again, and do not sigh at me. How was Khai taken?” She reached down and laid her hand on the stricken man’s cheek.
For a moment Manek looked as if he might rebel, but then he shrugged and turned his eyes down. Rather than let the Candace see the anger in his eyes, he stared at the precious furs where they lay on the white sand floor. Plainly Ashtarta found fault with his handling of the affair; perhaps she even blamed him for Khai’s condition. Nor was he blameless.
“We were camped outside the walls of Asorbes,” he began after a moment’s pause. “Having defeated the Khemites wherever we met them, our armies were tired and needed their rest. Our tents were some four or five miles from the city. We had some meat, for Pharaoh’s herdsmen had not been able to gather in all of the cattle before we surrounded the city. Indeed, we took a pair of young boys as they were herding, but they were mere children and so we let them go.
“So we ate and rested, and Pharaoh’s necromancers sent their blight against us, which I have already described. On the following night, when we went to parley with the Khemish commanders, then Khai was taken. As to how it came about—” he shook his head. “It seems impossible now that we could be such fools. We suspected nothing. The wonder is that I, too, was not taken; and—”
