Брайан Ламли - Khai of Khem

The yellow mage positioned himself directly opposite Manek Thotak. Then, turning his great head to look at the Candace, his slanted eyes bright in the lamplight, he said: “With your permission, Majesty?”

“Please go on,” she said at once. “Time is wasting.”

Now the nodding heads of the seven all seemed to lean inwards, closing on Manek Thotak like the petals of some carnivorous bloom about an insect. The yellow mage said to him, “The Pharaoh’s wizards have taken Khai Ibizin’s soul. They have performed the death rite of the nobility over him— while yet he lived! They have sent his fa down the centuries, to inhabit the body of another yet unborn.”

Manek stared into the eyes of the yellow mage and said, “And how may I help?”

“We are not completely familiar with this rite,” the whispering voice continued, “for it is an evil thing that the Pharaoh’s wizards have done, in keeping with their evil natures. Still, we believe we may be able to duplicate their dark handiwork.” Now the great heads leaned closer still.

“We wish to send your ka on Khai’s trail, also to be reborn in some far future, and we wish you to find him and bring him back. That is your mission, Manek Thotak, and if it is not done soon then surely will this mortal body of Khai’s turn into a shriveled husk. Without his soul, the general will soon die. You are the ideal choice, for you have known him well and will surely recognize him when you find him.”

Manek’s throat was now completely dry, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. His eyes went from those of the yellow man to his six strange colleagues, and from them to Ashtarta.

“Do this for me, Manek,” she said, “and you may name your own reward.”

Now he found his voice. “Candace, you must know that I would claim the richest prize of all?”

For a moment her eyes widened, but in a little while she answered: “If you so desire, Manek, aye. I have thought for some time that you were an ambitious man. Is it love for me which prompts you, I wonder, or do you simply desire the throne of Kush?” She held up a hand to quiet him before he could answer. “No matter. As you must know by now, my heart was ever Khai’s. And … if he were to die I should not want to live. To know he is alive, here, in this world, even though he can never be mine—there is no price I would not pay. Would you still want me for your queen on terms such as these?”

“On any terms, Ashtarta.”

“Then you accept?” Hope lifted her voice.

“I will undertake this mission, aye. And when I return—with or without Khai’s soul—then you promise to make me your king?”

She cast her eyes down, nodding in agreement, then looked him straight in the eye. “I do, Manek. And if knowing it pleases you, I think there are few men in Kush would make better kings.”

“Manek,” said Imthra, shuffling closer, his voice sharper than ever the general remembered it. “Not when you return but if! You understand, of course, there is no guarantee that you will return? No man can say what awaits you in your next life. The perils may well be extreme….”

“How will it be done, and when?” Manek asked. “I have an army camped where the forests of Khem once stood, and Khai’s thousands wait outside the walls of Asorbes. Though they have their own chiefs with them, still they cannot be expected to wait forever. Who will carry your word to them, Ashtarta, and what will that word be? Without their generals the armies are a rabble, and—”

“If all goes well,” Imthra broke in, “then the armies will not wait long for their generals. So long as Khai’s army surrounds the walls of Asorbes, the Pharaoh stays within. Let him wait! Only the seven mages may answer the rest of your questions.”

The Nubian mage came forward, his voice a deep rumble as he said, “You must put your faith in us, Manek Thotak. We shall perform the rite at dawn, with the rising of the sun—or, if things should go amiss, it may be repeated with the sun’s setting. All should be well, however.” His great brown eyes stared into Manek’s. “I am the Mage of Fascination. I shall come to you with the dawn and bring you here, to Ashtarta’s marquee. I will put you to sleep and impress upon your mind the importance of your quest, that in your new life you shall remember and go about the task set you.” And the Nubian stepped back into line with his brother mages.

To Imthra, the yellow mage said, “There is the matter of a reminder.”

“Ah, yes!” Imthra replied, and he turned to Ashtarta. “Candace, when Manek finds Khai in his future incarnation, he will need something to quicken in him the true essence of Khai. The ka will of course belong to Khai, but our Khai will be asleep. There will have to be something to shock him awake!”

Ashtarta tried to understand him, frowned, shook her head. “What is required ?”

Imthra looked at the seven mages. The yellow mage had picked up a face-mask of beaten gold from where it lay on a soft cushion. It was in the image of Ashtarta, a funerary device prepared on her orders against the possibility of her armies being defeated by those of the Pharaoh. She had vowed that in such an event and rather than being hunted down and taken alive, she would kill herself in a secret cavern tomb in the mountains. Dying, she would place the mask over her face. As her body decayed still she would wear the golden mask, going into the next world as beautiful as she had been in this one.

“Your mask, Queen!” Imthra exclaimed. “It would seem the ideal instrument.”

“My mask? But how may we send a solid thing such as my mask to follow Khai’s ka down the years? I do not understand.”

Imthra smiled, his old face wrinkling like ancient leather. “We will not send the mask anywhere, Candace, but merely enclose it in a box of hard wood and bury it. Only I shall know of its hiding place, myself and one other. The other will be Manek Thotak. When his ka alights in the future world he will remember the mask—the Mage of Fascination will see to that—and recover it. When he finds Khai, and when Khai sees the mask—”

“—It will trigger his awakening!” Ashtarta finished. “Good! But—”

“Majesty?”

“Let there be more than merely the mask. See—” she pointed at the stricken general’s recumbent form, at his right hand. “He wears a ring. He wore it as a boy and it has never left his finger. See how deeply it indents the flesh? His father gave it to him. Remove it now.”

A physician was sent for. He arrived, applied oils to the middle digit of Khai’s right hand and slid the heavy gold band loose from flesh which was permanently grooved. The Ankh relief on the ring’s face gleamed dully in the light of the lamps.

“It is fitting,” said Imthra. “As a boy he was a Khemite. The people of Khem believe that the looped cross protects. Since the ring has failed Khai in this life, let us pray it serves him better in the next.”

“Manek,” Ashtarta turned to the silent general and held out her hand. “Let me have your ring.”

Without a word, Manek removed his silver ring and gave it to her. She gave both rings to Imthra, saying: “Let these things be buried under cover of darkness, tonight. Go now, Imthra, Manek, and mark well the place. Then return by a winding route. Tomorrow as the sun rises, there will be the ceremony. And then—”

Her gaze seemed to burn as she turned it upon the yellow mage. “How long?”

The mage steepled his long fingers and stared at them for a moment. “If all goes well, Candace,” he whispered, “the transition will be immediate. However far Khai Ibizin’s spirit has journeyed, and however far Manek Thotak must follow—even in the matter of Manek’s recovering these buried things and his searching out of Khai—time is of no importance. For when the kas of the twain return they will be drawn back to this place, this time. The ceremony will take place and Manek will be seen to wax as one dead, even as the general Khai. Then, if all goes well, both shall awaken, renewed, restored!”