Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt

by Jocelyn Murray

  And none was shown them.

  Ankhtifi had then gone to Khety’s palace in Nen-nesu and presented the king with the severed right hands of his dead opponents.

  “What has been done with the rest of their remains?” the king had asked Ankhtifi.

  “Wrapped in goat skins, Lord King, and left in a shallow grave.”

  Khety regarded his enforcer with a look of apprehensive curiosity, narrowing his eyes as he tilted his head to one side. He was aware of Ankhtifi’s reputation, especially as it had been earned under his service. He knew that the man was feared. He was even familiar with Ankhtifi’s informal title and had once asked him about it.

  “Are you aware that they refer to you as He Who Wields Death?” Khety had asked this with a smile, though he was not truly amused by it. He actually found it rather disturbing and ominous.

  “Worse things have been said,” Ankhtifi replied indifferently, his eyes gazing away at nothing.

  He seldom made eye contact with Khety or anyone else for that matter; rarely held anyone’s gaze. And when he did, there was something cold within his eyes. It was as though he felt nothing inside—was incapable of feeling anything—neither joy nor sorrow. He was stoic to the point of seeming inhuman at times.

  Khety just stared at the chieftain and surreptitiously touched the amulet hanging from his neck, as he suppressed an inexplicable chill that left him uncomfortable. He distrusted the man. Yet Khety could not say why, or what it was about Ankhtifi that made him wary and watchful. It was more of an instinct cautioning him to be alert and on guard. It was as though he were standing in front of a wild and unpredictable animal which had been raised to do his bidding. But for all his training, the animal was still feral at heart. He was a savage in civilized guise.

  Although Khety had known Ankhtifi for many years, he realized that he really did not truly know him. It was impossible to really know the man. There was something very guarded and enigmatic about him. Ankhtifi lacked the empathy to understand or relate to others’ feelings. It was as though he were surrounded by a thick stone wall.

  Ankhtifi was not one for conversation either. He didn’t say very much, nor did he laugh. He did not find humor in anything, even when others were joking and laughing around him. All implied humor went right over his tall wolfish head.

  Over the years Khety had learned to be very direct and explicit with Ankhtifi. He knew that the man seldom strayed from routines. He was highly functional and prosperous yet took little delight in his affluence. He was the kind who found satisfaction in the accumulation of wealth, rather than in its spending, as though it really did not mean any more to him than its intrinsic value. He was an intelligent man, and highly skilled at calculations so that he was aware of the precise values of all items imported and exported from his settlement, and he kept the many details of these calculations mysteriously stored in his mind.

  Ankhtifi was also very independent; so independent that he had never married nor had any children. He showed no interest in relationships due to his inability to relate to others. But he was loyal to Khety, and that was all that mattered as far as Lower Egypt’s monarch was concerned. He had been loyal to him since childhood.

  As far as Khety knew.

  Khety watched Ankhtifi as he stood quietly before him. He pondered the chieftain’s response and how he had disposed of his enemies’ remains. Ankhtifi’s answer satisfied him. He had wanted his enemies dead. And he had wanted their immortal souls to be forever vanquished from the Afterlife. Burying them in goat skins was one of the worst things that could be done to the deceased, for it would prevent them from entering the Eternal Dominion of the Just, impure and unclean as they were. And severing their right hands would cripple them in the Hereafter, by taking their strength for eternity.

  Khety subsequently rewarded Ankhtifi with more power and wealth, and asked him to move from his settlement in the north so that he could govern the land of Nekhen in the south as a neutral lord, replacing the former chieftain who had died from illness. But the move was mutually beneficial. Not only would Ankhtifi get the much-coveted land which had once been the ancient religious and political center of Upper Egypt, Khety would also have a spy planted within close proximity to his arch-nemesis in Thebes. Ankhtifi would be the eyes and ears of Lower Egypt’s monarch. He would keep Khety abreast of the comings and goings of Mentuhotep.

  Many seasons of the Inundation had passed since Ankhtifi first became Chieftain of Nekhen—the City of the Falcon, after the falcon-god Horus. It had been shortly after the tragic deaths of Khety’s wife Shani and their children, when the bereaving ruler attempted to spend his dark and fathomless grief on a rampage of Lower Egypt. One by one, Khety had slaughtered his enemies, driven away threats, and cleansed the land of any potential adversaries with the help of Ankhtifi’s iron fist. But the ensuing peace was transitory, for a peace wrought in blood is nothing short of tyranny.

  Ankhtifi had claimed Nekhen about that time, moving to the settlement lying south of Thebes, under a pretext of neutrality in the great schism dividing Lower and Upper Egypt, all while helping Khety to purge the north of his enemies. But what Khety did not know, was that Ankhtifi had acted inexcusably beyond the duty of helping Khety to solidify his kingdom and rid him of his enemies. He had traitorously gone behind Khety’s back, and secretly raided other settlements in the ensuing years as well—blameless, neutral settlements that had nothing to do with Khety’s enemies; something Khety would have despised, had he known; despised enough to have even rightfully condemned Ankhtifi to death.

  Khety loathed treachery of any kind, and he abhorred deceit and disloyalty, especially where his own warriors were concerned. But he had not been aware of his enforcer’s clandestine raids. He had no knowledge whatsoever of Ankhtifi’s heinous crimes, and the innocent blood staining the man’s already-blackened soul. While Khety had sometimes felt a bit leery of Ankhtifi’s peculiarities, he needed Ankhtifi to help keep hold of his kingdom, and he relied on his assistance in achieving his longtime ambitions.

  Perhaps it was the influence of Ankhtifi’s men that urged him to commit such vile atrocities. They were certainly motivated by greed and the promise of plunder—whatever meager loot they might find in those small villages they attacked. Perhaps it was the dark, perverted satisfaction Ankhtifi took from the raids that had become routine for him, which led him to continually pursue a blazing and violent path of destruction with death in its wake. Perhaps it was his inability to connect emotionally with others, or to feel anything but a twisted sense of accomplishment which he derived from the wickedness of his actions; or a compulsion to savagery and evil he embraced with a dead conscience.

  Whatever the cause or reason, Ankhtifi had amassed a large band of loyal men over time, and he paid visits to several of the villages scattered along the edge of the Nile’s floodplain, as he made his way back and forth on his innumerable journeys between his home in Nekhen and Khety’s palace in Nen-nesu.

  People whispered about the lawless barbarians that destroyed innocent lives and property. They spoke of the ruthless raiders in hushed tones as they touched a trembling hand to their amulets and invoked the protection of their gods so that it would not happen to them.

  But the barbarism continued.

  And keeping his identity hidden, Ankhtifi and his men laid waste to those smaller settlements. They descended upon the villages like a pestilence, killing their people, stealing their grain and livestock, and plundering their temples, tombs and treasures; leaving nothing but a bloody aftermath of death, defeat and devastation.

  One of those villages had been Khu’s.

  SEVEN

  It was Ankhtifi who had led the massacre on that fateful day that destroyed Khu’s village, murdered his family, and forever changed the course of Khu’s life. The sun-god Re had already made his twelve-hour journey across the sky in his Mandjet solar boat, Barque of a Million Years, then descended beyond the horizon where he embarked on his Mesektet—night barque—thr
ough the twelve hours of darkness in the Underworld where he would journey eastward in preparation for his daily rebirth. The moon-god Khonsu rose full in the night sky, gilding the sleeping village with his silvery light.

  No one stirred as the vicious raiders glided along the Nile, drawing their oars soundlessly through the black shimmering water. Even the frogs and crickets that filled the night air with their chorus remained silent as they hid from sight. No breeze whispered through the doum palms, willows and sycamores bordering the plains, and their branches hung motionless in the night’s stillness.

  The men hopped out of their boats into the shallow water, and pulled their vessels through the dense reeds up onto the riverbank, leaving them with the oars inside. Their weapons gleamed in the moonlight as they stepped quietly on the soft grassy turf toward the sleeping village. No wild animals howled, no owls screeched, and no dogs barked in the stillness of the night as the invaders crept through the village and into each of the mud-brick homes to slit the throats of their sleeping occupants. The slayers moved with such calculated agility, that they managed to slaughter most of the village without a sound. No one but the moon-god Khonsu watched impassively from his sky throne as the pooling blood spilled in rivulets, and stained the ground. But even Khonsu had betrayed Khu’s village when he illuminated a treacherous path for the killers to accomplish their grisly deeds.

  It was a scream that had awoken young Khu and his family. He had been in the deepest stage of sleep and completely oblivious to the danger around him. He was in a room he shared with his parents and little sister when a woman’s voice had broken through the night’s silence. It was a short, startled cry that sent shivers up the spine of the young boy who sat up at once. But the sound was immediately cut off by the blade of an assassin.

  “Stay here,” Khu’s father ordered as he grabbed a sickle from a large earthen vessel sitting on the floor in a corner of the minimally furnished room. It was the reaping tool he used to cut the flax and barley in the fields lying just beyond the dwellings. Then he ran out the door with the tool’s wooden handle grasped firmly in his hand, its serrated flint blades poised to swipe at an unknown enemy.

  He never returned.

  Khu’s father was ambushed from behind as he moved swiftly toward the sound that had woken his family. He was struck over the head with the heavy force of a blunt object before falling to the ground in a daze. And as the images of his wife and children crossed his mind for the last time, his own sickle was used to cut his throat.

  Khu’s mother was crouched over her children in the darkest corner of the room, away from the single window cut high into the wall. She was trying to shield them with her body and a linen sheet. Fear tightened her chest and she could feel her heart thumping against her ribs. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she strained to listen for clues of the danger sweeping through the village like a plague. She kept invoking the protection of Isis over her children, her eyes searching the darkness, as she called upon the goddess who was friend to the poor and prosperous alike.

  “Sweet Isis, wife and sister of Osiris,” she muttered softly, “be with us in this dark hour, protect us from harm. Protect my children especially, you who are a mother divine—mother of Horus. Use the true name of Re to banish those who seek to inflict a scourge upon us.”

  “Mother,” Khu peeked from beneath the linen sheet hiding him and his sister.

  “Shh,” his mother whispered with a panicked shake of her head. “Shh… it’s alright, it’s alright. Just be very quiet and we’ll be alright,” she tried convincing herself more than anyone else.

  “They have moved away, Mother. We must go.”

  “No,” his mother’s eyes were wide. “We are safest here.” She gnawed at her lower lip anxiously, paralyzed by indecision. She was both too terrified to step outside, and too frightened to remain there.

  “But—”

  “Your father said to stay. We must stay. It’s alright. We’ll be alright.”

  For a few minutes they just waited in the gloom. The silence was oppressive. Each moment felt like an eternity. Their hearts fluttered like sparrows trying to break free from a tight cage, their wings beating against the bars trapping them.

  Shadows stretched across the length of the bare walls, and hunkered down in corners like goblins.

  “They will come back, Mother. They are not finished. They will come back and find us.”

  “No…” she shook her head rapidly in denial, “no, child… shh… it’s alright… just be still and silent, and we’ll be alright.”

  Khu could see the fear in his mother’s eyes. She almost seemed dazed by it. “We must go while we can,” he said. “This is our only chance.”

  Khu’s mother just stared at him, her face full of uncertainty and dread, while her mind’s eye probed the narrow alleys and obscured pathways running throughout the village.

  During the day, the village radiated a comforting warmth with the familiar sounds of craftsmen and artisans hammering away in their shops, or bakers filling the air with the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread prepared in clay ovens. There were donkeys carrying baskets filled with vegetables, fish or grain. Oxen pulled carts laden with pottery or bricks, and goats were herded from one place to another. These were the reassuring sights, sounds and smells of daily life. But on this night, the darkness that usually cast a peaceful hush over the bustling village, had transformed it into a daunting labyrinth. It had been cloaked in menacing, inky shadows which hid the raiders who would ambush them like waterfowl ensnared by hunters.

  “No. We must not leave. They will find us!”

  “Let us go Mother,” Khu urged.

  “Your father will return soon. We must do as he said and stay here.”

  “Now Mother,” Khu insisted, “before it’s too late.”

  But his mother refused to go. She believed they were safely hidden.

  Now that Khu was fully awake and alert, the magnitude of the terrible danger they were in hit him with full force.

  He knew his father would not return. He knew this. He knew something had happened to him; something terrible. He was gripped by a sudden chill at the moment of his father’s death, and had cringed from the force of it. But he did not say so to his mother. It would only make her panic. He knew death was sweeping over the village like a scorching sandstorm blown by the hot desert winds over the land, and all they could do was wait like mice burrowing in a shallow hole.

  He wanted to flee. He wanted to run. He wanted to head over to the river before the predators returned to sniff them out and pounce on them. But his mother was too afraid to go anywhere. She did not want to expose her children to the danger outside.

  And so they waited.

  More screams pierced the darkness, shattering the tranquility that had reigned only hours before. Khu’s mother clung tightly to her children and shut her eyes against the fear burning within her. She had heard rumors of other villages besieged by raiders. She had heard talk of how villains slayed entire settlements—men, women and children—before plundering whatever wealth could be found in their tombs, temples and granaries. But it never entered her mind that this village could be attacked as well. It was the kind of inconceivable atrocity that happened elsewhere, far from the safety of home.

  Those were the unthinkable horrors that happened to other people.

  And as she bent down on the floor, adjusting the sheet to shield her precious children from the danger looming nearby, a man entered the room. He was tall with a wolfish skull and elongated chin.

  Khu’s mother stood up at once with a startled gasp, stepping quickly in the opposite direction to draw the man’s attention away from the corner where her children hid. A surge of adrenaline filled her with the courage of a lioness protecting her young from a clan of ravenous hyenas. She faced her attacker squarely with nothing but her clenched fists at her side.

  Under the sheet, Khu’s sister squirmed and began to cry. He tried to clamp his hand over her
mouth, but she got away from his protective embrace.

  Khu’s mother shot a sidelong glance at the little girl who crawled toward her on the floor. His mother tensed her entire body, her jaw clenched tightly, and her eyes wide with terror as she held her breath, willing the child to back away with all the might of her being; willing her to disappear from view, out of danger’s sight; willing her to remain safe and invisible; willing for the impossible, for a feat of godlike proportion that would never come.

  But the girl did not go.

  And with every inch of the child’s movement, Khu’s mother felt her heart beating harder and louder to nearly bursting point.

  The man followed her gaze as he slowly lifted the dagger in his hand. He pushed Khu’s mother out of the way before killing the girl in one swift strike.

  His mother fell back against the wall, shrieking at the senseless and incomprehensible brutality of her child’s murder, and her eyes filled with a wild hysteria. It was a savage, bloodcurdling sound that wrenched Khu’s heart in two.

  She lunged at the killer then. She leaped toward him full of anguish, desperation and madness, but her agony was snuffed out with another strike of the man’s blade.

  Khu did not move.

  His mother’s dead body crumpled over the sheet that partially covered him, saving his life as it shielded him from view.

  The man stood there for a few moments searching the darkness with black sunken eyes, glittering with a feral glare. He did not see Khu watching him intently, absorbing every nuance of his lupine face—including the tic that made one side of the man’s jaw twitch. And as the slayer turned to leave, Khu shuddered from the depravity seeping from the man’s dead soul, like the blood pooling around him.