by Brad Geagley
“Naia always said you had a rare talent for survival,” remarked Nakht with a small sneer. “Since I was only ever privileged to see you drunk, I never quite believed her.”
The pressure on his throat eased a bit as Nakht called across the wadi, “I’ve got him!” Lightning blistered the valley again.
“You’ll not get away with it, Nakht.”
The aristocrat’s laugh bellied out across the canyon. “Naia also said you weren’t exactly a sage when it came to expressing yourself. She was correct there, too.”
“We know the names of all the conspirators—Pairy the treasurer, the master of the stables, Panhay, the librarians Messui and Maadje, Kenamun—all fifty of them.”
He heard the tip of Nakht’s sword strike the ground, as if the man’s arm suddenly had lost its strength.
“What if you do know the names?” Nakht’s attempt at bluster would have succeeded but for the slight quiver in his throat. “By tomorrow, Ramses will be dead, and Egypt will have a new pharaoh.”
“There may well be a new pharaoh, but I can tell you that it won’t be Pentwere.”
“You’re so sure—”
“I am sure. The crown prince is hidden far from Djamet, and safe. You’ll never find him.”
He could not see Nakht’s expression. But there was a sudden cry of rage, and Semerket heard the slash of the blade as it came down. He instantly rolled to the side, and the sword clanged against the stone ledge where he had stood. Not waiting for another sword thrust, Semerket pitched himself forward, over the stone lip, falling blindly down into the dark.
It was no more than a cubit or so before the sloping face of rock caught him. A thin coat of slurry now layered the cliffs, and Semerket slid down to the valley floor, head over heels, accelerating as he plummeted. He attempted to grab at any stone or boulder in his path but they, too, were slick with mud. The slope ended abruptly some distance above the wadi floor. He pitched forward into space.
Semerket landed in a pool of water. From the stinging sensation on his forehead, he knew his wound had again torn open. Amazingly, it was his only major injury. He stood shakily, testing his limbs. No broken bones—all seemed intact.
A cry from above echoed through the canyon. “Get him!” shouted Nakht. “He’s in the wadi!”
Semerket ran. He had no idea where he went, for in his fall from the cliff he had lost all sense of direction. He splashed through the newly created brooks and pools, following the bend of the valley floor. He turned his head to see if anyone followed him, but the patter of the rain and the cascades of water from the cliffs above prevented him from hearing anything else. Suddenly he was on his face. Something— or someone—had tripped him. When he tried to rise, rough hands held him down.
“We’ve got him!”
The voice belonged to the northern beggar, Noseless. He was pulled to his feet by many hands, and his arms were pinned behind him. Though he struggled, he could not free himself; there were too many of them.
Accompanied by a surge of mud and gravel, Nakht worked his way down the cliff, half sliding, half leaping to join them.
“He’s a snake, this one,” said Nakht, “always slithering away to hide behind some rock.”
“Well,” said Noseless, fingering the knife in his belt and walking confidently toward Semerket, “he won’t be slithering away again.” The beggar assumed a wheedling stance, hunching his shoulders, and whining in mock piteousness, “A tiny dablet of cash, kind sir? Some silver? A piece of copper? What about this piece—?” Noseless whipped the dagger from his belt, and looked back to his beggars to see if they enjoyed the joke.
Neferhotep came running to them from the tomb. “For the gods’ sake, quit talking and kill him this time!”
“He says they have the crown prince hidden away,” Nakht said, his voice edged with uncertainty. “Maybe we should force him to take us there—”
“Don’t be a fool,” said the scribe. “Semerket’d never tell, you know that—he’s that stubborn. Kill him now, I say.”
After a moment Nakht leaned toward him, his clipped voice low and gloating. “Well, it seems you’re out of luck at last, Ketty.”
They circled him. Semerket knew he had only moments to live, and for the first time in years he actually found his lips forming words of prayer. “Help me, Mother Isis,” he prayed silently. “Not for my sake, but for Egypt’s. These men shouldn’t be allowed to live.”
They forced him to his knees and shoved his head forward to bare his neck. In the dark, he heard a sword unsheathed. He waited for the icy blow, not breathing. He thought of Naia. Of his brother. Of Pharaoh. Semerket closed his eyes, leaning back into his heels, and faced death for the second time that day.
But the blow never came.
A sudden blast of cold wind hit his face instead. From down the length of the black canyon there came a growing roar, sounding like some huge animal, unleashed. The sound grew louder, accompanied by explosions of canyon walls as they collapsed. Even in the darkness he could see the line of white foam—the frothy edge of an immense wave of water speeding at them from far up the canyon.
The last thing he heard before the wall of water hit him was the screams of the men in the wadi. Then the churning desert sea engulfed him. Dense with mud, sand, and grit, it hurled Semerket forward on its curling spume. Patches of his skin were instantly rubbed raw, for the water was like emery dust. His head broke the surface, and he saw beggars and Medjays crushed against the cliff walls, screaming. The baskets of golden discs, heaped on the desert floor, were instantly overturned and buried by the waters.
Semerket felt himself carried along by the infant river in an almost leisurely fashion. Though he was jolted painfully as he was hurled against submerged boulders and canyon walls, he found that by simply allowing the water to flow where it may he was in no immediate danger of drowning. He almost laughed aloud, thinking how ironic it would have been to escape a watery death in the Nile only to find it in the middle of a desert.
The clouds were fast clearing from above, and the blanket of stars behind them suddenly shone through, silvering the Great Place with their light. He saw that an overhang of rock was just ahead; as he passed under it he reached up, feeling with his hands, searching for a handhold—a branch, a crevice, anything. The waters tore at him, though, defying him to escape them. It was hopeless, he decided. Just as he was about to drop again into the torrent, his fingertips brushed something warm and living—another hand was reaching for his.
Semerket almost let go from shock. He raised his head and found himself looking into the face of the young prince who had so long ago told him that god-skin was being made at the campsite.
“Hang on to me,” said the boy.
He reached, but the waters pulled savagely at him.
“I’m too heavy for you—I’ll only pull you down with me!” he told the boy. “Save yourself!”
“Don’t be afraid,” said the prince, grinning. And, strangely, Semerket was not afraid. He stretched his arm as far as he could reach, grasping the prince’s fingertips.
Then he was atop the ledge of stone, and safe.
THE GATES OFDARKNESS
HE AWOKE ON A PALLET OF SOFT DOWN. THE brightness of sun on whitewashed walls stabbed like knives in his head. Squinting, Semerket saw a room that was very neat, very orderly, except that there seemed to be two of everything—from his newly washed kilt and mantle, hanging from pegs in the wall, to the jug of water on the tiles beside him. It was a moment before he realized he was seeing double.
The sound of cheerful humming floated to him. A young woman knelt before a chest, not knowing he was awake. Semerket studied her as she withdrew a linen towel. If he concentrated very hard, he discovered, he could force his eyes to focus. The woman’s long black hair had a blue sheen, almost as blue as the strands of beads in her ears, glimmering like the wings of beetles.
“I know you,” he said aloud, surprised.
She looked over at him, smiling. “I
am Keeya, and, yes, you know me, my lord. I serve your brother. He’ll be relieved to know you’re awake.”
He was in his brother’s house across the river in Eastern Thebes. “How long have I been here?”
“Three days.”
“Three—?”
“Lay your head down, my lord,” Keeya told him firmly. “The physician says you are not to move, not until the iris in your left eye is equal in size to the one in your right—though your eyes are so black, I can’t see how he tells the difference.”
“How did I get here?”
“Medjay Qar brought you. He says they found you high in the mountains of the Great Place, the morning after the terrible rains. A young prince stood beside you, he said, and called them over. When they reached you, the prince was gone. You were so still, he said, they thought you were dead. They don’t know how you managed to survive the terrible flood.”
Semerket brought his hand to his forehead and felt a bandage. “Where is Nenry?”
Keeya dropped her eyes sadly. “Alas, my lord, he is at the House of Purification. We are in mourning in this house.”
He sat up then, despite the girl’s admonitions. “My brother is dead?”
She put a finger to her lips. “No, my lord. Please lie back down or the physician will be very angry with you. Your lord brother has accompanied his wife’s body to the embalmers.”
“His wife?” Semerket wrinkled his brow, and pain shot down his face from his wound.
Keeya moistened the linen rag and brought it to his face. “An accident in the cellar,” the girl said, and there was an odd spark of satisfied reminiscence in her eye. Idly she brought a hand to her ear, lost in thought. Then she shook her head slightly, and her blue earrings sparkled in the light. “A knife,” Keeya said, her eyes hooded. “It was very sad.”
He sat up again to question the girl further, but the pain in his head was so great he could only wince and lie back on the pallet.
“Do you see why the physician says to remain quiet?” Keeya asked archly, drawing the blanket over him again. “And he is a very great physician—from the palace!—so you must do as he says. Really, you would not wish to go outside into Thebes today. It’s not a happy place.” She poured him a bowlful of water and held it to his lips.
“What do you mean?” he asked after he had swallowed. “What has happened?”
“Why, soldiers are everywhere! There have been so many arrests, they say, that the forecourt in Amun’s Great Temple has been turned into a prison just to accommodate them.”
The thing he had been unable to remember rose suddenly in his mind to smite him. The conspiracy!
“Pharaoh!” he said. “What has happened to him? Tell me!”
“Ah, my lord, it’s very tragic. Who would choose to live in such times? The stories they tell are unbelievable.”
“Just tell me, Keeya!”
“From what your brother says, His Majesty’s wives surrounded him in the harem. Queen Tiya took a dagger and…”
The pounding in Semerket’s skull overwhelmed him, and the sudden roar in his ears drowned out the serving girl’s words. He slipped again into unconsciousness.
WHEN SEMERKET NEXT WOKE, it was afternoon. His brother sat cross-legged on the floor next to him, dressed in the dark gray robes of mourning. Nenry seemed anything but mournful, for he was conversing in low but energetic tones with two scribes who wrote quickly as he spoke. When Nenry saw that his brother was awake, he dismissed the scribes with a gesture. They backed out of the room, bowing as they left. “Welcome back, Semerket,” he said.
“Who is Pharaoh now?” his brother asked.
The question seemed an odd one to Nenry, and he blinked. “Why, Ramses III, of course.”
Semerket gave a start. Had he dreamed the conversation with Keeya? “But your serving girl said… at least, I think she said…”
“He was wounded, Ketty. But he is still alive—and asking for you, by the way.” Nenry could not resist a smug grin.
“Me?”
“You’re a hero! The blackest conspiracy in the history of Egypt was thwarted because of you.”
Semerket dismissed his brother’s words. “Tiya and Pentwere…?”
“In custody—though Pentwere is trying to convince everyone that the conspiracy was all his mother’s idea. It won’t save him, though. Ramses is like a lion in his wrath.”
“And the rest of them… Paser… Pawero? Iroy?”
“All in the Djamet prison awaiting their trial—along with almost everyone whose name was on that list you found, together with their households. All yesterday and today, soldiers have been raiding their estates and taking their families and servants into custody. Over a thousand men and women, I’m told, all locked into Amun’s temple.”
The image of Naia rose in Semerket’s mind. She would be among the thousand, and probably terrified. “Nenry, you have to help me.” Semerket struggled to sit, though his head still pounded and again his vision became blurred. “I have to get Naia away from there, somehow—”
“Lie down, Ketty. Though I can’t have her released, I’ve seen that she and her child have their own cell, and that the temple cooks should prepare her meals. She’ll eat as well as the priests—which is to say better than Pharaoh.”
With a relieved sigh, Semerket lay back down. Then he turned alarmed eyes once again on his brother. “How is it you can give such orders? Are you trying to protect me—?” He stopped speaking when he saw the odd expression of wonder on his brother’s face.
“Ketty,” said Nenry, swallowing. “I’ve the most incredible piece of news…”
Semerket stared at him. Never had he seen his brother so rapturous. “Well?”
Nenry took a shaky breath. “Yesterday the vizier proclaimed me the new Mayor of Eastern Thebes.”
Semerket decided that he was hallucinating again and settled back down into the bedding to wait out his mind’s spasm. But when he opened his eyes again his brother was still sitting there with the same expression of wonderment on his face.
“I didn’t know you had another son to sell, Nenry.”
Nenry did not sputter his usual protests, nor did his face fill with its usual tics and grimaces. “My son is playing in my courtyard at this moment, Ketty,” he said with calm dignity. “His adoption by Iroy has been invalidated. I became mayor because of my ‘exemplary courage’ in helping to put down the rebellion. Anyway, I was Paser’s scribe and knew about ruling the city. It made sense to everyone.”
“You’re a widower, too, I hear.”
“Y-yes…” Nenry said, and Semerket was relieved to see his brother’s face fill again with its customary grimaces. “Merytra, er, had an accident in the cellar. Terrible. Blood everywhere. Poor thing.”
“A knife was involved, Keeya said.”
“Yes—the servants were the only witnesses to her… clumsiness.” Nenry could not long endure his brother’s black gaze, and he wailed, “She would have been put to death anyway, Ketty! For colluding with her uncle and the queen. At least I’m spared any scandal at the start of my term.”
“I understand, Nenry.”
And Nenry truly did see understanding in the black depths of Semerket’s eyes, even approval. After that, Nenry eagerly told his brother of his night at Djamet.
The night of the rains, he told Semerket, Paser and Iroy had come to the temple and replaced all the guards at every gate with men loyal only to them. “Luckily,” said Nenry, “I had already arrived with Yousef and the beggar army. I went back into the barracks to rouse the soldiers against the conspirators, but what I saw there—” Nenry shuddered, remembering.
“What did you see?”
“It was like something out of an old folk tale of wizards and bewitched palaces. On every barracks door, Iroy had scrawled symbols of bewitchment in human blood—how he got it, the gods alone know. He had strewn amulets and charms everywhere. When I opened the doors, I tell you, brother, it was the eeriest thing I’d ever seen. All the
men were dormant. They couldn’t move, could barely even breathe, though there wasn’t a mark on their bodies. Who would believe that magic could be so powerful?”
Semerket remembered the terrible dreams that Tiya had sent and how perilously close to death they had brought him. He swallowed. “Go on,” he said.
Before Nenry could continue, however, they were interrupted by Keeya. Gravely she led a physician into the room, followed by three of his servants. Semerket noticed how the young woman fleetingly touched his brother on the shoulder as she left, how Nenry’s face flushed with pleasure when she did. He suddenly knew the truth between them, the thing that Nenry was too shy to mention. Thebes would have an intelligent and kindly first lady, he thought.
“Good afternoon, sirs,” the physician said, scanning Semerket critically. “I shall be glad to report to Pharaoh that our patient has revived.”
Semerket was surprised to see by his insignia that the man was actually one of Pharaoh’s own doctors. The servants placed the physician’s box of instruments and medicines beside the pallet. The physician sat next to Semerket, cross-legged. He snapped his fingers and a servant handed him a stick. The doctor held it in front of Semerket’s face, commanding him to stare at it as he moved it up, down, and sideways.
“Have you experienced any pain in your head?”
“No.”
“Any double vision?”
“No.”
The physician regarded Semerket doubtfully. “Please, Lord Mayor,” he said, “I have interrupted your tale—do continue.” He began to undo the dressing on Semerket’s head.
Nenry again took up his narrative. “At any rate, Yousef and I knew that we would have to fight our way into the temple if we were to save Pharaoh. Yousef gave the command soon after the Sekhmet garrison came, so that they barely had time to settle in.
“I tell you, Semerket, I could hardly believe it myself.” He laughed raggedly, remembering. “A beggar who only a moment before had been dying of leprosy—to see him suddenly leap forward to stave in a guard’s skull—or the beggar woman who without warning thrust a dagger into a soldier’s throat—nothing could have been more surprising to the soldiers.”
