Брайан Ламли - Khai of Khem

And Imthra had known the ceremony immediately, even though it was not practiced by the people of Kush. He had recognized it despite certain basic anomalies, despite one highly peculiar circumstance. It was that rite with which the Khemites sent the ka of a dead person winging on its way into the next world—except that from the slow rise and fall of Khai’s chest, Imthra had known that the young general was not yet dead!

Almost two hundred miles away and a few miles west of the Nile—beyond vast, blasted areas of savannah, marshland and forest, where all the trees were now flattened down or snapped off at their bases and the grass was blackened stubble—there the Pharaoh Khasathut had built Asorbes, his titan-walled city and stronghold.

The heart of the city was a golden pyramid, almost complete now, whose base covered twenty-three acres. Built of fifteen million tons of yellow stone, it towered to a height of almost six hundred feet. In a later age, its tumbled and scattered blocks of vastly-hewn limestone would be floated almost three hundred miles downriver and utilized in building the lesser monument which one day men would call the “great” pyramid, ranking it as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Khasathut’s pyramid itself would not survive the ages, no, but if it had then surely it must be the first of all such wonders.

Central in all the lands of the Pharaoh—which until recently had consisted of the entire Nile Delta and Valley from the Mediterranean to the fourth cataract, and from the Red Sea to the swamps, forests and savannahs of the west—Asorbes stood huge and until now impregnable. Khasathut had used the crocodile-infested swamps as a buffer against the resurgent mountain tribes of Kush, whose people in their thousands he had once enslaved for the building and maintenance of his fortress city and pyramid tomb, a task which had absorbed him and destroyed them for years untold. There were few Kushite slaves in Asorbes now, for they had refused to breed for the Pharaoh and their blood had finally run out; but it had been the blood of a proud and fierce race and the Kings and Candaces of Kush would never rest until the agonized ghosts of their people no longer cried out for red revenge.

Now the savannahs were razed to naked earth, the forests laid waste and the swamps magically dried up from the city’s west wall as far as the eye could see. Now, too, half of the army of Kush laid triumphant siege on the city and awaited orders from Ashtarta; and yet there was no rejoicing among the grim warriors without the walls. In the hour of his triumph the general Khai had been kidnapped, taken by the enemy and smuggled away into Asorbes by the black wizards of Khem. His fellow general, Manek Thotak, had bargained with Khasathut for Khai’s life, and the Pharaoh’s terms had been a truce in exchange for the young general’s freedom. A truce, and the withdrawal of Ashtarta’s army from Khem’s ravished territories.

Manek Thotak, acting on his own initiative, had accepted these terms; but when Khai was lowered from the walls of Asorbes into the hands of his men, then it was seen that he was stricken with a strange malady. He was not dead, but it was as if he were.

Nevertheless, the Pharaoh had honored his part of the agreement, however deviously, and so Manek Thotak immediately ordered the withdrawal of Kush’s army; and knowing of Ashtarta’s love for Khai, he made preparations for the stricken general’s immediate return to Kush. Manek had overestimated his authority, however, with those tribes previously under Khai’s control, especially his Nubians. The chiefs of his impis refused to lift the siege but determined instead to wait outside the city’s massive walls for Ashtarta’s decision.

Doubtless the Candace would feel obliged to accept the terms arranged by Manek Thotak, but if she did not... Khai Ibizin’s legions would wait here, beneath the walls of Asorbes, until word came back to them from the queen herself. If that word was peace—then, however, reluctantly, they would leave.

But if it was war …

Many miles beyond the dried-out swamps and shattered forests, hurrying westward, Manek Thotak led fifty men across a shriveled wasteland which recently was a sweeping savannah. He rode in a chariot alongside one of his lieutenants, while to the rear his men rode ponies and kept watch over a central cart in which, on a pile of soft furs and linens, the waxen form of Khai Ibizin bounced without injury as the cart sped over rough ground.

Manek had left his eighty thousand warriors in a temporary camp a mile or so inside the dead forest’s border, within a clearing of sundered, shattered trees. There he had led them—many of them crowded into horsedrawn carts, a few riding in two-man chariots, the rest on foot or seated two-astride the backs of sturdy hill ponies—and there he had bade them wait. Then, setting off with his fifty men and the cart containing Khai, Manek had sent a lone rider on ahead to warn of his coming and to prepare the Candace for a great shock. The war with Khem was all but won, but the general Khai was lost.

Manek had known well enough not to leave his regiments camped too close to the general Khai’s troops, for that would surely have caused unnecessary problems. The armies were, after all, gathered together from three separate nations comprised of many different tribes; and it was bad enough to have Khai’s men refuse his authority in the matter of the siege without further exacerbating matters. His own troops would not take kindly to the fact that Khai’s men had seen fit to ignore his orders. Since many of these little kings were recent rivals, they might well turn upon each other in his absence; and so he moved his regiments to their present location.

During that move, they had trampled a front two-and-a-half miles wide, with flanks half a mile deep. Now, by comparison, Manek felt almost naked. His fifty men seemed like a mere handful; this despite the fact that he knew there was nothing this side of the Nile which could possibly threaten him. All of these lands now belonged to the Candace, should she desire them. But Manek believed she would honor his arrangements with the Pharaoh. She was an honorable woman and must surely see that if he had not come to some agreement with Khasathut, then Khai Ibizin would now be dead.

As it was, the general Khai lived—if such a condition could properly be called life—but he could no more command Ashtarta’s armies than could a puling babe. More to the point, he was no longer a contender for the Queen’s hand, no longer a threat to Manek Thotak’s own ambitions.

Manek ordered his driver to rein back until the cart carrying Khai drew up alongside. He looked down at the stricken general and a frown creased his high brow beneath the rim of his bronze war helmet. “Aye, old rival,” he said under his breath, “and now see what you have come to…. You were always her favorite and knew it, though I never guessed it and you never hinted. She loved both of us—but me as a brother. You—” he grated his teeth and ordered his driver to speed on ahead once more, “—you she loved as a man, for your pale skin, your fair hair. And how well will she love you now, I wonder, with your slack mouth and vacant, staring eyes?”

“I see from the set of your jaw, Lord,” said Manek’s driver, “your pain at seeing the general Khai lying so still. What ails him, I wonder? Is it some disease contracted in the Pharaoh’s cells within Asorbes’ walls—or is it some device of Khasathut’s black magicians?”

“Why do you ask me?” Manek rounded on him. “Are there not enough problems without your search for more? Leave the general Khai be. What can be done for him will be done. Concern yourself with your driving. I’m sore from the night’s ride. Never have I suffered such a bruising!”