Lynda Robinson: Slayer of Gods

Satet was proud of herself for thinking about Sebek. The bodyguard was probably dead, but if a journey to the great southern city of Syene would take Meren away from the house, she wouldn’t have to listen to him for a good long time. Of course, his daughter Bener would try to stop him from traveling. She wanted him to rest. She said he wasn’t well enough to walk around his garden, much less go on a journey. When her father wouldn’t listen to her and insisted on joining his charioteers in the practice yard, Bener had brought in an ally, Lady Bentanta.

A childhood friend of Meren’s, Bentanta wasn’t intimidated by him as most were. She’d come in response to a message from Bener and had spoken a few words to the invalid in a low whisper. The great Lord Meren, Friend of the King, warrior and royal confidant, had immediately left the practice yard and retired.

“Wonder what she said to him,” Satet muttered to herself.

Whatever it had been, it was powerful enough to keep the boy in his bed. Lady Bentanta had remained at his side for almost a week, and during that time they fought. Then one day shouts had erupted from the boy’s chamber. Lady Bentanta burst out of the room, turned around and yelled. Satet had never heard anyone yell at Meren. Everyone held him in awe and quite a few feared him. But not Bentanta. She’d stood in his doorway with her hands on her hips and shouted.

“If you don’t rest, I’ll be back!”

“A fearsome threat,” came the bellowed reply. “To avoid another of your visitations, I’d stay in this bed as still as a corpse on the embalmer’s table for a year!”

After that scene Meren’s mood got worse. That’s when pharaoh sent a troupe of musicians to cheer his friend. They’d been so successful that Bener now had them play every night until her father was lulled to sleep. Once he’d regained his full strength he’d be off chasing murderers and other evildoers. The possibility cheered Satet as she reached the well.

It was so late that no one was around the well, except Beauty. She joined the goose beside the well and saw that her pet was feasting on crumbled fig bread. Someone had been careless.

Beauty was almost finished eating. Satet tried to pick up a piece of the fig bread, but the goose nipped at her fingers and honked.

“Naughty girl!”

As she bent to try again, she heard something behind her. Satet turned her head only to encounter a moving shadow. It swooped at her, and her head burst into dazzling pain. Beauty screeched and flapped her wings when Satet fell beside her. The bird scuttled out of the way before her owner hit the ground. Dazed, aware of little but the agony in her head, Satet felt her body leave the ground. She opened her eyes, glimpsed the yawning blackness beyond the spiral stairs leading to the base of the well, and felt her body drop. She cried out as her head banged against the side of the well. Darkness deeper than that of the well enveloped her as she hit the water.

In the street above, Beauty the goose fussed and flapped and attacked bare toes. She honked and launched herself out of the way when her assailant tried to bash her with a long-handled weapon. The blow landed on packed earth with a crack. Beauty spread her wings, sprang into the air, and flew out of reach. The attacker cursed the goose, looked over the edge of the well at the body floating in the water, and faded into the shadows.

Meren rose from his bed and shoved aside the sheer curtains that hung from the frame surrounding it. The vent in the roof caught the night breeze and funneled it into the room as he listened to the quiet. In a house this size, with its gardens, kitchens, stables, barracks, and servant’s quarters, silence was a rarity. He fumbled around until his hand met a table of cedar inlaid with ivory. Using it to steady himself, Meren cursed quietly.

An old nightmare had torn him from sleep as it had many times since his eighteenth year. Usually his own gasps and moans jolted him to consciousness while at the same time pain lanced through his wrist. Now he turned his face to the cool wind issuing from the vent and gulped in air. He tried to calm the racing voice of his heart. Sweat covered his body, and he shivered. In the darkness his fingers searched out the scar on his wrist; it always hurt after he had the dream.

In the night vision he was back in Horizon of the Aten, and his father had just been executed for refusing to abandon the old gods in favor of the pharaoh Akhenaten’s new one, the Aten, who was the sun disk. It had been midday, but the city had fallen silent in the way that small creatures do when they sense the presence of a predator. Meren was alone in his house except for a few servants, and his father hadn’t been dead more than a few days. Without warning shouts broke the unnatural silence, and Akhenaten’s guards burst in and dragged him into the streets.

They took him to a cell near the palace. For days they’d beaten him and asked questions to which he had no answer, certain he was a traitor to pharaoh’s new religion. Suspicion had become a sickness with Akhenaten, for Egypt refused to believe in the Aten and clung to the old gods who had created and governed her for thousands of years. As the firstborn son of a traitor, Meren was suspected of aiding the rebellious priests of Amun, the king of the old gods.

After days of starvation and beatings, he hadn’t cared when his tormentors came into his cell to kill him. He lay on the floor, naked, his wounds caked with dirt, his vision blurred with sweat, and watched several pairs of feet walk toward him. Rough hands lifted him, and he bit his lip to keep from crying out at the pain. They dragged him into another room where dancing shadows cast by torches made him dizzy.

A cold hand lifted his chin, and Meren opened his eyes to stare into those of Akhenaten. Black as netherworld darkness, brittle as obsidian, those eyes raked him as if trying to divine the very essence of his ka, his soul. Then Akhenaten began to speak, saying that Queen Nefertiti’s father had defended Meren.

“Ay speaks on your behalf. He says you’re young enough to be taught the truth. My majesty thinks not, but the One God, my father, commands me to be merciful to our children.” Akhenaten toyed with a lock of Meren’s hair. “We will ask once, Lord Meren. Do you accept the Aten, my Father, as the one true god?”

Meren blinked and swiveled his head. There was Ay, standing silent, looking hard at him. Meren stared into the eyes of his mentor and gave his head a slight shake. Ay was asking him to bring damnation upon his ka. Father had died rather than risk his eternal soul; could he do less? But Ay wanted him to live; Meren could see it in his eyes. And may the gods forgive him, Meren wanted to live.

That was when he’d opened his dry cracked mouth and said, “The Aten is the one true god, as thy majesty has pronounced.”

Ay nodded to him, but the movement was so slight that Meren could have imagined it.

“Words come easily for you,” the king said as he turned away, “but my Father has shown me a way to claim your ka for the truth. Bring him.”

The guards dragged him after the king and stopped before a man who crouched behind a glowing brazier. Meren’s vision filled with the red and white glow of the fire. Without warning, he was thrown to the floor on his back. This time he couldn’t stop the cry that burst from him as his raw flesh hit the ground. A heavy, sweating body landed on his chest. Meren bucked, trying to throw the man off, but the guard was twice his weight.

He could see the brazier and, beyond it, the fine pleats of pharaoh’s robe and the edge of a gold sandal. He fought the guards when they spread out his right arm. In spite of his resistance, the arm was pinned so that his wrist was exposed. The man behind the brazier lifted a white-hot brand. A guard knelt on his upper arm, making it go numb.