Брайан Ламли - Khai of Khem

So it was that desiring to know more about these things he had heard whispered but fearing to approach the other members of his family, Khai finally turned to an outsider. Imthod Haphenid was Harsin Ben Ibizin’s apprentice, a young man five or six years older then Khai whose father had been Harsin Ben’s good friend for many years. On his deathbed three years earlier, old Thutmes Haphenid had asked the architect to take Imthod into his tutelage.

The youth would be heir to Thutmes’s house and his wealth—enough to maintain a modest standard of living—and if in addition he took a trade, then perhaps he could make something of himself. Too weak for soldiering and having little aptitude for business, the youth seemed of little use for much else. But that was not to belittle Harsin Ben’s field, on the contrary, for Imthod did have a good head for numbers, measurements and sketches; and so maybe Harsin Ben could teach him his arts and in so doing prepare him for a useful and constructive life.

Imthod was duly indentured and five days out of seven came to study under his new master. A sickly, unhandsome young man, he could usually be found in the old architect’s workshop studying his sketches and plans, or examining his models of pyramids, temples and other great houses. That was where Khai, who had always found Imthod friendly enough in the past, eventually approached him with his problems and questions.

On the subject of the Pharaoh, however, Imthod was worse than useless; he knew only that Khasathut was the God-king and the most powerful man in the world. As for strange goings-on in the pyramid: the ways of kings were known to be strange, Imthod said, and those of gods even stranger. How then for a God-king whose forebears came down from the stars? And anyway, what was Khai’s interest in the first place?

And so, instead of learning anything from his father’s apprentice, Khai ended up telling him all that had transpired after the Royal Procession, even mentioning his parents’ fears for himself and his sister and their doubts with regard to Pharaoh’s beneficence and the well-being of those he took into the pyramid as his own. And here Imthod was most attentive, prompting Khai until he had picked every minor detail and morsel of information from the boy’s memory. Finally, having learned all, he cautioned Khai against ever repeating his story, then made as if to return to his studies.

After Khai had left him, however, Imthod sat at his bench for a long time doing nothing, with his eyes narrowed and a frown etched deep into his forehead. Four years, the boy had said. Four years until Pharaoh claimed Namisha for a bride and took Khai off to be trained for duties in the pyramid. And Harsin Ben was opposed to Khasathut’s plans, was he?

Imthod began to wonder how much he could learn from the old man in four years. A great deal, he suspected, if he really put his mind to it. But would it be sufficient to earn him the Pharaoh’s royal seal of approval, to make him the next Grand Architect of the Pyramid in his master’s place? For if Harsin Ben were found guilty of treason, why!—then there would be need for a new man to finish his great work.

Oh, there were other architects in Asorbes, to be sure—but none of them had served under Harsin Ben Ibizin, and none of them could possibly know his work as well as his own eager apprentice. The more Imthod thought about it, the more he could see the possibilities. In four more years, he would be a mature man, and if he handled the affair cleverly, he might possibly become the youngest of all Pharaoh’s favored ones.

After all, what did Imthod care for the Ibizins? Nothing! That snotty Namisha with her nose always in the air; and the boy, Khai, so naive and stupid; and Harsin Ben himself, who was blind to genius when it stared him in the face! What was he anyway but an old man, an insufferable old man who was forever complaining about something or other—always going on about how a man might get away with building a faulty house or even an ugly temple, but never an imperfect pyramid—always grumbling about how tasteless and slipshod Imthod’s work was.

Ah, but just suppose that the old fool really was building an imperfect pyramid? What if it could be shown that Harsin Ben deliberately schemed to sabotage Pharaoh’s great tomb? With this last thought Imthod nodded and smiled a sick smile. Yes, he would show the old dodderer, and in the process elevate himself to a position of great power.

But not yet, not just yet. Four years would be time enough… .

From that time on—as the weeks turned into months and life in the Ibizin household, while retaining little of its former harmony, nevertheless began to balance out—Harsin Ben found at least one change for the better. This was in Imthod Haphenid’s progress in the field his father had chosen for him. It was as if the apprentice had turned over a new leaf and could no longer get enough of his master’s teaching, which was a transition at once welcome and unexpected.

Perhaps it was because the old architect was so unhappy—with his daughter’s gradual decline, with Khai’s neglect of his schooling in favor of archery practice at the massive barracks behind the pyramid, unhappy with the whole generally bleak-looking future of his beloved family—that he took so much pleasure from the way his pupil now responded to his teaching. One of the old man’s qualities which helped greatly in making him a good teacher lay in his never failing to give credit where it was due, and he often remarked that Imthod’s emerging dedication must surely pay the young architect great dividends in the years to come.

Old Thutmes Haphenid had been right after all, it appeared, and Harsin Ben took additional pleasure in the fact that his friend’s faith in his sickly son seemed at last to be bearing fruit....

Contrary to Khai’s boyish beliefs and his mother’s prayers, and despite his father’s sleepless nights and his sister’s almost total withdrawal into herself—which of late had seemed to manifest itself in secretiveness, furtive nocturnal absences from home and bouts of tearful self-pity—the four years passed all too quickly and the day of reckoning rapidly drew closer. During that time, several changes had taken place in the Ibizin household, each of them as a direct result of the Pharaoh’s decree.

Khai’s father no longer protested his son’s desertion of more mundane lessons in order to attend the ranges of the barracks; indeed Harsin Ben now openly encouraged Khai’s participation in target practice, for he secretly hoped that in the end the Pharaoh might be swayed toward letting Khai follow a military career as opposed to inducting him into the affairs of the pyramid. The lad’s prowess as an archer had won him countless awards in competitions with other young aspirants to the Corps of Archers, carrying him to a peak of marksmanship which even his instructors found difficult to match.

As for Adhan: he had become an especially brilliant mathematician—exponent of a comparatively new science which went hand-in-hand with measurement and the arts of pyramid-building—and was now his father’s chief adviser in the design and construction of Pharaoh’s tomb, which rapidly neared completion. Two or three more years at the outside, and it would only remain to fill the pyramid’s topmost cavities with thousands of tons of fine sand and to coat its vast exterior with a shining skin of gold. To these ends, the finest sands had already been brought from the shores of the Great Sea, transported and sifted, and as for the gold: Pharaoh had now commenced the stripping of all known goldmines in the Eastern Desert and the forests north of Nubia, and despite N’jakka’s coolness, he had put out feelers into the heart of the Black Kingdom itself, demanding an annual tribute in large measures of raw gold.