Valley of the Kings

by Terrance Coffey

  Meri-Ra touched each of Akenaten’s arms with the wand and repeated the incantation three times. He then touched Akenaten’s legs with it and repeated it twice. There appeared to be an excessive amount of moisture on his legs compared to the rest of his body. Meri-Ra crouched over his lower extremities to study it. The pharaoh’s sweat looked tinted, but most likely because of the scarcity of light in the room, Meri-Ra thought. To be sure, he wiped a large portion of it away with his hand and brought it up to his face for a closer look. Meri-Ra was horrified. It was not his imagination. Akenaten’s legs and torso perspired blood. He had never witnessed a spell that could induce blood shedding. Whoever had cast it against Akenaten possessed an indomitable ability of sorcery that frightened Meri-Ra to the core.

  In haste, he covered Akenaten’s body with the bedcover. A spell combined with a ritual of magic needed to be cast immediately, not to help the pharaoh (nothing more could be done for him), but to save himself and the people of Amarna. Once again, Meri-Ra would have to consult the writings from The Book of Coming Forth and cleanse himself of Akenaten’s tainted blood in the temple of the Aten so that the infection wouldn’t spread through his own body. Before he could leave the pharaoh’s chamber, Nefertiti stopped him, desperate to know what he had learned.

  “Tell me. Can his illness be treated?” the queen asked.

  Meri-Ra was ashamed to tell her what he knew. How soon would he be blamed for the gravity of the pharaoh’s illness because of his incompetence to heal him? So the priest kept his head bowed when he responded.

  “I’m sorry, my queen. His illness has been judged. It cannot be treated.”

  Meri-Ra rushed out of the pharaoh’s chamber and into the palace corridor. Nefertiti followed behind him, seething.

  “You’re sorry?!” she shouted as she stalked him down the hallway.

  “There’s nothing more I can do.”

  “You are the high priest of the Aten,” she pressed. “Don’t let him die like this. You must do something to help him.”

  Meri-Ra stopped and turned to face the queen. “I am incapable,” he said, shaking his head.

  Nefertiti strode up to him, face-to-face. “I swear to you, as the queen of Egypt, I will have you slaughtered if you don’t return to his chamber and help him.”

  Meri-Ra ignored her and continued down the corridor again toward the exit doors of the palace.

  “You will return to his chamber now, Meri-Ra!” screamed Nefertiti.

  Meri-Ra faced her, driven to the pinnacle of enragement.

  “I can’t help him!” he shouted. “What else would you have me say? That the Amun priests are stronger than me? Does my confession now bring you contentment?”

  Nefertiti was speechless. Never had anyone dared to say that Amun was stronger than the Aten god, and worst of all, this admission had come from the mouth of the Aten’s highest-ranking priest.

  “It doesn’t matter what you do to me. What the disease will do is a thousand times worse. I expect it to enter me next,” said Meri-Ra.

  He bowed and left the palace, leaving Nefertiti uncertain of what to do next.

  She returned to Akenaten’s chamber and took his hand again. Breathing had become arduous for him, and with each inhalation and exhalation he struggled. Nefertiti ignored the blood-sweat on Akenaten’s legs and wiped the moisture from his eyes with a cloth so he could open them again without the salt stinging him. The sight of his gaunt face triggered her emotions. Unable to hold them back any longer, she broke down in tears.

  “Hold on, my dear husband,” she said softly. “The Aten is rising into the sky and its rays will heal you. He will not abandon his son. He cannot abandon his son. You are strong, you are a god,” she said.

  “I am strong,” Akenaten repeated back to her, his voice fading and feeble.

  Nefertiti wiped the moisture from his face again and started to kiss his lips. In a moment of lucidity, he placed his hand to her mouth to stop her.

  “No, you mustn’t, the disease could enter you as well,” said Akenaten.

  She ignored his warning and kissed his lips.

  “You are my husband. We are one,” she replied.

  Tut and Senpaten entered the room. They glanced at their father’s face. The look of it frightened Senpaten.

  “Father, you’ll be well soon, won’t you?” she asked warily.

  When he didn’t respond, she turned to her mother. “Father will get well, won’t he?”

  “You can’t remain here. You have to leave and let your father rest,” said Nefertiti, avoiding her daughter’s question.

  “Tut will stay. I want to speak with my son alone,” said Akenaten.

  Nefertiti wanted to object, but obeying her husband, she took Senpaten’s hand and escorted her out of the chamber.

  Tut was afraid. He stared at the dark bruises covering his father’s neck and chest. The pharaoh pushed himself up in bed so he could face Tut eye-to-eye.

  “Come closer,” he said.

  Tut sat on the bed next to him, teary-eyed.

  “Don’t feel pity for me, son. The Aten has not forsaken us. I’m still his son, and you are of his offspring. You must promise me you’ll continue to worship him.”

  “I will,” said Tut.

  “Your reign as pharaoh will bring an end to this curse and Amarna will flourish for a thousand years.”

  Akenaten removed the Aten amulet from around his neck and placed it around Tut’s.

  “My brother, Tuthmosis, gave it to me when I was young as you are now, and it has always protected me from the beast that brings about death. The time has come for me to face him, but it’s your time to live, my son. Wear it always. Never let it leave your sight. It will protect you.”

  “I will do as you wish, but what will protect you, Father?”

  “The Aten is always with me,” said Akenaten.

  He kissed his precious son on his forehead. In his eyes, Tut was the most profound gift that the Aten had ever given him.

  “Have I ever told you how proud I am of you and your skills as an archer?”

  “Many times, Father,” Tut replied.

  “The Aten has chosen you to be the next great ruler of Egypt. I love you, son, more than I love my own life.”

  “I love you too, Father. When will the Aten heal you so that we can be together in the courtyard again?”

  “He will heal me in the time he chooses. For now, you must go. Send your mother here to me,” said Akenaten.

  Tut left his father’s chamber firmly clutching the amulet.

  When Nefertiti returned, Akenaten was shivering more than ever. With some difficulty she helped him sit up in bed and dressed him in his king’s robe: an elaborate pleated garment made of the finest weaved linen and dyed in royal purple. The collar was adorned with feathers and semi-precious jewels, a favorite garment of his father, Amenhotep, handed down to him after his death.

  “If I were as unblemished as our son, Tut, my father would have been proud of me,” said Akenaten as Nefertiti helped him back into his bed and under the bedcover.

  “You’re a good man, a wonderful husband and father, a god of the Aten, and the people of Amarna love you dearly,” said Nefertiti. “If your father was alive to see the beauty of what you have created here in this glorious city, he would be enormously proud of you, my husband.”

  “No. My body carries more than just the weakness. I am blemished from the inside and unworthy.”

  The barrier Akenaten had taken a lifetime building around his heart had burst. Tears flooded his eyes, and he lost all control. “Why would you have me believe that I could be acceptable to him?”

  Nefertiti was silent. She struggled to contain her impulse to cry for him again, an act of pity he despised.

  Though he lay on his own deathbed, weak and near discovery of the afterlife, his father’s approval was still the one thing that her husband longed for.

  Nefertiti tenderly caressed his face and whispered. “You are more than acceptable,
my sweet husband.”

  She lifted Akenaten’s head to help him drink from a jar of wine. He could only muster enough strength to take one swallow. His body tensed. His legs and arms would not move at his command anymore. It was about to happen, and he needed to tell her everything before he embarked on his journey.

  “Promise me with your whole heart that you’ll never leave Amarna—that you will keep my people here safe from the tyranny of the Amun priests. This is now your city Nefertiti.”

  “I promise I will do everything you ask,” she replied.

  “Are you truly listening to me?” They’ll come here and attempt to force you and the Amarna people back to Thebes. Fight them. You are the queen of Egypt, and they must abide by your rule,” said Akenaten, struggling not to lose consciousness.

  He reached up and touched her face. “My sight is fading.”

  “Can you not see me?”

  “It’s cloudy, like a fog-mist rising from the river at dawn,” replied Akenaten.

  Nefertiti took his hand from her face and kissed it. “I will love you into eternity, my husband.”

  As Akenaten’s eyelids fluttered shut for the last time, he found himself in a familiar place. He was Teppy again, a six-year-old boy running terrified through an endless grainfield. There was a roar in the distance as the beast propelled itself toward him. The nightmare that haunted his childhood had returned.

  Akenaten fled like a gazelle fleeing from a cheetah, his linen kilt flapped against his legs as coarse leaves of wheat thrashed his bare chest. Suddenly, a voice called out to him. A familiar one.

  “Teppy! Teppy, wait!”

  Akenaten stopped running and collapsed in the sand. A shadow spread quickly across the area around him. It was in the form of a man dressed in the regal clothing of a pharaoh. He carried a sickle in his hand and a bow with a quiver of arrows slung over one shoulder. His face was hidden in silhouette against the blinding orange sun. When the figure shifted its body, its head came into view—the unmistakable head of a ram. It roared again at Akenaten, and saliva dripped from its canine teeth. How could the beast be the source of the soothing familiar voice that had called him by his childhood name? No one would dare call him Teppy, man or beast, except his brother. And before Akenaten could scream at the sight of the ram-headed creature, Tuthmosis miraculously appeared from behind him. “Don’t be alarmed, Teppy, it won’t harm you,” said Tuthmosis as he took Akenaten’s hand and lifted him up onto his feet. Tuthmosis had not aged a day since the last time Akenaten had seen his sixteen-year-old brother in the healing temple before his death. His face was golden, and his eyes, vibrant and filled with life. Akenaten could only stare at his older brother, speechless, yet overjoyed.

  “Tuthmosis,” he said timidly, unsure if it was safe to unleash his emotions.

  “Yes, it’s me and I have returned for you my little brother.”

  At this, Akenaten threw his arms around Tuthmosis’s waist and clung to him as tight as he could. “I missed you so much. Why did you leave me?”

  “Now is not the time for sadness, Teppy. We’re together again, and look . . .”

  Tuthmosis peeled his brother’s arms from around him and removed what now appeared to be a mask of a ram’s head off the shoulders of the beast. Under it was their father, Amenhotep. “I told you, little brother, you don’t have to be afraid of him.”

  “My son, come to me,” said Amenhotep, his arms extended.

  Amenhotep embraced Akenaten, and in that moment, all the weight of Akenaten’s life’s despair fell away. He was accepted, and no longer invisible to the father he had always cherished.

  When Akenaten turned around, he saw his sweet Nefertiti standing alone, barefoot in the desert sand, only a hundred cubits away, distraught at watching their reunion. Her long white linen dress flowed effortlessly in the wind, and her skin glinted like polished copper. She was as beautiful as the day he had married her. Nefertiti held out her hand, silently entreating Akenaten to return to her instead.

  Tuthmosis interrupted his gaze. “Come, Teppy, we have to hurry before the Aten rises between the mountains.”

  “Are we going to the river to swim again?”

  “Not this time, Teppy.”

  Tuthmosis pointed to the white light that gleamed a short distance ahead of them and expanded over the Aten’s horizon. It was sublime, with prisms of colors brighter than the sun. The time had come for Akenaten to embark on his journey. He was now a young boy again, able to run like a gazelle and hop or jump as high as he wanted. His legs were as strong as those of an ostrich, and there was no need for a walking cane. Akenaten turned away from the image of his dear sweet Nefertiti and took the hand of his brother, Tuthmosis, and his father Amenhotep. The three of them walked across the desert sand together as one, hand-in-hand, into the light.

  CHAPTER 31

  The year was 1334, the year of Pharaoh Akenaten’s death, and at only ten years of age, Tut was forced to accept that he would never again hear his father’s voice or feel his embrace. He would never see him beaming with pride when he dismounted his chariot after precisely hitting a moving target. It was the worst pain of all to lose the one he believed cared the most for him.

  His sisters, Senpaten and Mayati, couldn’t stop crying. They still grieved the loss of their sister Meketa, and now their father’s death had only compounded their anguish. Akenaten was the son of the Aten—an omniscient god, not only to his children, but even more so, to the citizens of Amarna. He implored his people to depend solely on him, and now that they were without their pharaoh to appease the Aten, a blanket of trepidation covered the city.

  Hordes of women screamed and wailed outside the palace doors as the village mourned the pharaoh’s death. Men beat themselves in the chest and tossed dirt over their bodies. “Akenaten! Akenaten!” they all shouted over and over again. Others secretly welcomed his death, hopeful that Akenaten’s cruel executions would stop. Nevertheless, it frightened the royal children to hear the people wailing and cheering, and there was no chamber in the palace free from the sound of it.

  Tut was determined to hold back his tears for the sake of his sisters. He thought if he maintained his composure, they would soon be calmed.

  His mother’s behavior proved to be the most disconcerting. Nefertiti withdrew from her children, adding to their feeling of abandonment. Tut tried to console his mother but failed to get through to her. Nefertiti had remained in bed with Akenaten’s corpse for days after. Tut turned to his grandfather for help, and when Ay entered the pharaoh’s chamber, he found his daughter lying next to Akenaten’s body under the bedcover. The smell of death in the room was unbearable, yet Nefertiti appeared unaffected by it. Worried about the state of her sanity, Ay awakened his daughter by snatching away the bedcover. He covered his mouth and nose with his hand to mask the putrid smell.

  “My daughter, please. We have to prepare him,” said Ay.

  Nefertiti looked past her father. “He’ll come back into his body, you’ll see. Just give him more time,” she replied. “He will come back to me. He’ll return to his children.”

  “Time has run out for him, daughter, he has begun the transition. As it is written, you have to let the priests prepare his body for mummification, or he won’t complete his journey into the afterlife.”

  “No, he’s coming back.”

  “If you don’t release his body to the priests, you’ll anger the Aten and cause even more harm to this city. Allow Akenaten to make the journey so he can live again!” yelled Ay.

  His shouting shook Nefertiti from her trance, and life began to return to his daughter’s eyes. He reached his hand out to her, and she took hold of it. Nefertiti rose from Akenaten’s bed and covered his pasty gray face with the bedcover. “All he wanted was to see the city he dreamed of completed. How could the Aten deny him of that?” she said. Ay embraced his daughter, and she cried there on his shoulder.

  HOREMHEB’S FERRYBOAT ARRIVED on the shore of Amarna seven days later. Ay was sus
picious of the timing because the general’s visits aligned with the death of royalty. First, Queen Ty and Kiya, and now Akenaten and Meketa.

  Ranefer escorted Horemheb and his brother Kafrem to the Amarna palace where Ay sat at a table inscribing the pharaoh’s death proclamation, to be sent out by messenger to their tributaries.

  “General, your visit here again is unexpected. I assume you’re surprising the queen with shipments of gold,” said Ay.

  “It’s impossible to give you what we don’t have,” replied Horemheb. “The queen was informed some time ago that there would be no more shipments of gold until the pharaoh grants me the authority to wage war against our enemies.”

  “Then why have you come? No such authority has been given.”

  “We’re concerned about the stability of Amarna,” replied Kafrem.

  “Your concern should be for Thebes,” said Ay, “not Amarna.”

  “We know of the famine in this city and the lack of grain supplies,” said Kafrem. “The disease has killed many citizens here, has it not?”

  Ay was deprecated at being questioned about Amarna, especially by Kafrem. “You may be a mayor in the city of Thebes, and a brother to the general, but here you are irrelevant.”

  Ay dismissed Kafrem and turned to Horemheb.

  “We have adequate grain supplies here and the spreading of the disease has slowed. Amarna is grateful for your concern general, however, it’s not needed. You’re welcome to return from where you came,” said Ay.

  Horemheb stood his ground. “Is the royal daughter Meketa dead?”

  Ay paused, not sure how he should answer. Nefertiti would be outraged to know that Horemheb’s motive for coming to Amarna was not to bring gold or supplies, but to spy on their city. Still, Ay had no choice. The general would find out soon enough.