by Overton, Max
"I know. There is a village along here somewhere. We must get to it."
"Nobody will give us shelter in this."
"There is one man. He was loyal to me once. He may remember me."
It seemed like hours before they found the village but they had no way of telling aside from their exhaustion. The blanket of ash lay thick and heavy over Ta Mehu, blocking light from the eyes and air from the lungs. Many animals lay beside the road or as half-covered mounds dimly seen in the fields. Others still stood, but choked and wheezed as they fought for breath.
"Where is this follower of yours?" Mose said as they reached the first of the mud brick houses in the village.
"This way, I think." Scarab led the way to one side, her steps becoming more confident as she recognised half-seen landmarks. She rapped on the doorpost of a modest looking house.
"Go away," said a voice from within.
"Pamont?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Scarab."
The door opened and the face of an old man peered out. "Who did you say you was?"
"Scarab. Can we come in?"
"The only Scarab I knows--or knew--was a young lady down in Nubia many years ago."
"That was--and is--me."
"You don't looks like her," Pamont said. "She was beautiful."
"You look a bit older too, Pamont, as I dare say do Huni, Sepi, Hapu and Kahi. None of us stay the same."
He looked again. "By the gods, it is you. Come in, come in." Pamont pulled the door open to let them in and closed it again hurriedly as ash drifted in after them. The main room of the house was dark and shadowy, lit by a single oil lamp. Pamont hurriedly lit another one and held it up. "By the gods, it is the Lady Scarab. Er, this is my wife Wia."
A dumpy looking woman with a bloodied rag held to her mouth, nodded and bowed. "You is welcome, lady," she mumbled around the rag.
"And is this Khu?" Pamont asked. "He's changed more than any of us."
Scarab laughed. "No, this is my brother. He goes by the name of Mose these days."
"Your brother, lady? He don't look like er, King Smenk..."
"Another brother, Pamont. I am sorry to impose on you but in this ash cloud we needed shelter until it passes. We can offer silver..."
"You will do no such thing, Scarab," Pamont said. "You saved my life in Nubia and anything I can do now is little enough. Now, you'll have some food and drink? Wia, what can we offers our guests?"
"We has fresh-baked bread, but only water and some radishes and onions."
"That will be lovely," Scarab said. "Let me help you." She picked up one of the oil lamps and followed Wia out into the kitchen area where she poured water from a jar into four cups while the older woman peeled and cut the vegetables.
"What happened to your mouth, Wia?"
"Me teeth, lady. They is broken and now one of them's rotten. Me husband tried to pull it out today."
"Let me see."
Wia was reluctant, but was persuaded to sit and tilt her head back while Scarab held the lamp close. The contents of the woman's mouth made Scarab wince, but she examined the teeth carefully, tapping them with her fingernail to be sure which one was the troublesome one.
"If my friend Khu was here, he'd whip those teeth out in no time, but I think I can help you too. Close your eyes, Wia, and think of something pleasant. How about when you first met Pamont?"
Wia grinned and then groaned in pain, but she closed her eyes obediently. Scarab prayed to Geb and then slipped her thumb and forefinger into the woman's mouth and gripped the offending tooth. She tugged and it came loose in a surge of blood and stinking pus. Scarab held a bowl for Wia.
"Spit in here. Wash your mouth out and spit again. Now close your eyes again." Scarab took Wia's face in her hands and opened her stone eye. Great Geb, heal this woman's mouth. She felt the pulsing current of the god flow from her fingers, and Wia cried out in surprise. "It is done." Scarab took her hands away and Wia's eyes opened and grew wide with wonder.
"The pain is gone." Wia stuck a finger tentatively in her mouth and felt around gingerly. "They don'ts hurt. O thank you, lady, thank you."
"Thank Geb. He healed you."
"I will make an offering as soon as the darkness lifts," Wia declared.
Pamont was equally astounded, and now quizzed her about her stone eye and who these gods were who obeyed her so readily.
"I do not command the gods," Scarab was quick to point out. "I am the servant of the Nine of Iunu and they gave me gifts that I might carry out their work. They answer my prayers because I always give them credit and because the help they give me furthers their own desires."
"And you, Mose?" Pamont asked. "Are you a servant of the Nine too?"
"No. There is only one god, Yahweh. I obey only him and I am his prophet."
"One, eh? You sound a bit like that king fella what had only one god what listened to him and nobody else."
Mose opened his mouth to reveal who he was but Scarab put a hand on his arm and stopped him. "A king's daughter has many brothers, Pamont," she said. "And I know a friend can keep a confidence."
"Aye, that's true enough, lady. Wia and me won't be breathing no word of you to anyones."
When they finished their simple meal, Scarab and Pamont went outside to check on conditions. It was hard to tell if dusk had fallen or the ash was thicker. The soft grey grittiness lay over every object, turning the village into a graveyard almost unseen in the murky darkness.
"What is this calamity that has befallen us, lady? Do you know?"
Scarab drew him back into the modest shelter of the doorway and told him as much as she thought he could handle. "So the plagues are visitations by this Yahweh god, not any of the gods of Kemet. Yahweh wants the king to let his people, the Khabiru, leave Kemet with all their wealth. Every time Horemheb refuses, Yahweh sends another plague. This time it is ash and darkness."
"Well, let us hope the king comes to his senses really soon," Pamont said fervently.
They went inside to sleep. Pamont tried to make Scarab take the only bed, but she refused, curling up on some reed mats in the kitchen, and Mose doing the same near the front door. Scarab woke to find herself in darkness, the single oil lamp left burning having run out of oil. She lay listening for some minutes but could hear nothing except an occasional soft creak from the roof timbers. She dozed and woke again, the pressure on her bladder urging her outside. The darkness was complete and the air stifling and filled with fine particles. She coughed and held her damp rag to her face again.
I've no idea where the midden is . Then she realised that in these straightened circumstances it hardly mattered. She followed the wall of the house round by touch alone and squatted in the ash. Mose stirred where she went back inside, and a few minutes later took a trip outside for similar purposes.
"Your god hasn't forgotten us, has he?" she asked Mose when he came back in.
"Yahweh will do as he pleases. We must just wait patiently while his purpose is fulfilled."
Scarab smiled in the darkness. "You are starting to sound like a priest. Anything that cannot be explained is put down to the workings of their particular god and nobody can say when it will stop or start or change. 'As God wills' is the catch-cry of those who have no idea what is happening."
"I am God's Prophet," Mose said stiffly. "He tells me only what people need to know."
They slept again, though fitfully, and all awoke to eat and sit around in the cloying darkness. There was nothing they could do, so they told stories, Pamont of the Nubian campaign, Scarab of her later adventures, and even Mose unbent far enough to tell some particularly dull tales of his sojourn in the desert. Wia had scarcely moved out of her village in the last twenty years but knew all her neighbours well and told some humorous tales of the comings and goings of everyday village life.
The darkness continued, but they had no idea of the passage of time. They hoarded the remaining oil, burning only one lamp, and rationed the dwindling supply of
food and water. At one point they heard a muffled thump close by and cries from their neighbours. Pamont went to the door and peered out but came back shaking his head.
"It's hard to say, but I thinks their roof collapsed."
They slept and ate, talked and slept again for lack of anything else to do. On one of Wia's trips to the midden, she returned and said she thought the day was brighter, that she could see the surrounding houses. The others crowded to the door to look and agreed that though the clouds still hung low, there was less ash in the air.
"I think it might be coming to an end," Scarab said.
Pamont came in from another visit to the midden some time later with depressing news. "It is darker again. It is not ending."
Scarab and Mose went out to see and confirmed this finding. "The darkness is different somehow," Scarab said. "The air is cleaner too."
"There is a light," Mose said. "No, it has gone. It was over...there, again." He pointed.
"It is a star. The clouds are parting, blowing away. See? Another."
As the hours passed, the four of them watched the night sky slowly resolve itself. The moon appeared from behind the thinning ash clouds, larger than they expected, setting in the west.
"It cannot be that large. How long have we been in darkness?" Pamont asked.
"The ash cloud fell on the seventh day after the new moon," Scarab said. "Judging by the growth of the moon that is ten or eleven days after. We have been at least three days in darkness."
The land of Kemet was desolation by the light of the rising sun. Grey ash lay everywhere, blanketing village and field alike. Only the river moved, a milky flow cutting through a dead landscape. Their spirits sank as they looked around them, for Kemet must surely have gone down into ruin by this act of Yahweh. Other people emerged from houses and huts and stared in horror at their land. Many bodies were brought out and laid in the sun as people mourned loved ones lost to the choking ash.
An east wind sprang up, lifting the ash into the air again, creating fresh billows. The wind strengthened and the ash was borne over the river and into the western desert. As the drifts dwindled to nothing, green appeared in the fields once more and the land of Ta Mehu returned to a semblance of life.
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Chapter Forty-Three
Scarab and Mose went north to Iunu as they did not know where their friends would be. Strangely, the ash cloud and darkness had not affected everyone, nor even every town in Ta Mehu. Iunu had escaped relatively unscathed, as had the tribes in the eastern desert, but reports filtering in over the next few days told of widespread death in the cities. In some cities, one traveller from Per-Bast said, it was as if every family had lost someone, and often a child, to the choking darkness.
"What of the Khabiru in Per-Bast?" Scarab asked.
The traveller looked at Scarab askance. "A relative? Chances are they are alive. The ash fall was least over their camp."
Members of the Pillar straggled in to the holy city of the Nine over the next few days, including Jesua. The Shechite warrior was grinning with delight at the destruction that had been heaped on the Kemetu, and was full of stories of death and heartbreak among the populace.
"The kings will have to let us go now. If they do not, all Kemet will die." Jesua stared at Scarab's expression. "What? You do not share my hope?"
"Horemheb and Ramesses are the ones at fault, but it is innocent men, women and children who will pay for their stiff necks. I sincerely hope they do let us go now, because I want to see no more death."
Khu and Merye arrived, having conveyed the warning of doom to the Khabiru. They also brought a message of hope for Scarab. "We found Jeheshua at Djanet--oh, and Miriam too--she sends her love. Jeheshua says the Khabiru there are ready and will follow Yahweh and his prophet if the king's troops will stand aside." In the days following, similar messages came in from the other Khabiru camps.
The physician Nebhotep came in from the main Shechite camp in the eastern desert, bringing with him a group of young men eager to join the 'Eye' and the Prophet of Yahweh in their battle against Horemheb. The young men were allowed to stay, but Scarab sent Nebhotep back with a mission to take the women and children north and east and to work their way over to Kanaan. The handful of men remaining in the camp would suffice as they were not, under any circumstances, to fight the Kemetu legions.
Scarab then called a meeting of all the Shechite leaders to discuss their next actions. "I shall go to Horemheb again, with Mose, and tell him to let us go. I hope that he will do so this time, having seen the futility of fighting against Yahweh. In the meantime, I want every Khabiru group loaded up and ready to move the moment the king's permission reaches them."
"Is that not what we just did?" Jesua demanded. "We contacted every group and they all said they would go."
"Not quite," Khu said. "They said they would go, but not that they were ready to go. What Scarab means is they should be ready to start marching immediately, not start packing their camp onto camels."
"It seems the same thing to me," Jesua grumbled.
"We must also move in strength," Scarab continued. "The worst thing would be every Khabiru camp making its own way across Ta Mehu and through the border deserts. While the kings may agree to let us go, the people of Kemet may be resentful we are taking herds and wealth with us. They will be afraid to rob a large group but may readily attack smaller groups. I suggest that once we know the kings will let us go, we send a unit of the Pillar to Per-Wadjet, the farthest group, and they conduct them eastward, picking up the camps at Zau, Djedu and Djanet along the way. Another unit guards the Per-Bast camp and goes past Hut-waret. A third will go to Sena in the northeast."
"And Zarw?" Abrim asked. "There are Khabiru at Zarw now that the forts are rebuilt."
"All three groups meet at Zarw. There we form one army and march north and east through the line of forts into Kanaan."
"Who controls the Pillar?" Jesua asked.
"Scarab of course," Khu said immediately.
"I hope there will be no need for them except as escort," Scarab said. "If we need more, we will have to decide then. For now, I am still in charge unless someone wants to challenge me for the position." She looked around at the circle of men. "No? Then Jesua will leave immediately with a hundred men for Per-Wadjet and await word to move. Abrim, you will take thirty and collect the Sena group. I will take the remainder and escort the Per-Bast and Hut-waret groups. But first, Mose and I will face the kings once more. We will take runners with us to carry the word to the commanders."
The Pillar divided into its groups and set off, leaving Scarab and Mose behind at Iunu, together with Khu and Merye, who refused to leave their loved ones this time.
"I'm coming with you," Khu declared stubbornly. "So don't try and talk me out of it."
Scarab smiled. "I would not dream of it."
Six runners came with them. They would remain on the eastern bank and be ready to carry the word of release to Jesua and Abrim.
"Er, Eye of Geb," one of the runners asked. "What if the kings will not release them?"
Scarab shrugged. "I really don't know, Caled, but I think that Yahweh will bring such a calamity down on Kemet that the best thing you could do is run to the desert and hide in a cave."
As it happened, Scarab and Mose did not have to travel to Ineb Hedj to hear the words of the kings. Just north of Pamont's village, the herald Djeseramentu and his messengers met them.
"Lady Khepra and Mose, King Setepenre Horemheb and King Menpehtyre Ramesses, may they live a million years, send their greetings to you and a message. Thus say the kings: The Khabiru are to leave the land of Kemet forthwith, taking with them such goods and chattels, herds and flocks as are presently in their possession. They have a month to vacate the lands of Kemet and never return. Should they do so, they and their property will be seized and disposed off as the kings see fit.
"Lady Khepra? Mose? Do you accept the kings' terms?"
&
nbsp; "We do."
"Do you have a message for us to take back?"
"Greet the kings with as much formality as pleases you and thank them, saying we will abide by the kings' terms...providing they supply messengers to carry the kings' words to the troops guarding the Khabiru camps. I would not want the officers in charge not believing we came with the words of release."
Djeseramentu bowed and smiled, holding out sealed scrolls. "King Setepenre Horemheb anticipated you. Here are scrolls addressed to the commanders of every garrison, commanding they let the Khabiru go and also to assist them in any way required."
Scarab accepted them and opened two at random, scanning the terse commands written therein. "Thank you Djeseramentu. Please also tell the kings that if they are tempted to back on their word and send a counter-order to the garrisons, the anger of Yahweh will make the ash darkness seem like a mild inconvenience."
Djeseramentu drew himself up, a look of shock and horror on his face. "My lady Khepra, you impugn the words of kings."
"Do not be shocked, Djeseramentu. They may be kings but they have no royal blood in them as I do. Also, I have known them longer than you. Warn them of the consequences of betrayal."
"I still cannot take those words to them, my lady. It would mean my life."
Scarab nodded. "I will leave it to your discretion then, but Djeseramentu, if they do go back on their word, much hurt will come to Kemet. Tell them then if you dare not before."
"Thank you, Lady Khepra." Djeseramentu hesitated. "May the gods of Kemet keep you safe, my lady." He bowed, and he and the messengers departed.
They were scarcely out of earshot before Khu yelled with delight and started to dance right there in the road. "We've won! And we didn't have to make any more threats." The other men joined in, though Mose limited himself to a dignified smile. Scarab and Merye hugged each other.
Scarab divided up the scrolls among the messengers, telling them to get to the garrisons at the cities of Ta Mehu without delay. Khu pointed out that a boat would be faster, so they cut across to the nearest branch of the river delta and hired three boats with Scarab's last necklace.
