Брайан Ламли - Khai of Khem

“I guarded the Candace from her enemies, Lord,” the black laughed, “but not from her lover!”

“Her lover. …” Manek slowly answered. “Yes, of course.” Then he laughed a high, shaky laugh. “And I believed that I was Khai’s only confidant. How mistaken I was! … But come, come you must tell me all about it,” and he led the huge Nubian to a place where they could sit and talk in private. Which they did for quite a long time… .

Later that evening, the great gates of Asorbes opened and tens of thousands of Khemish troops and mercenaries moved out from the city for a mile or two and took up defensive positions within the greater circle of the besieging forces, which they outnumbered by at least two to one. Though the Kushite commanders kept a very wary eye upon them, the Khemites made no attempt to attack; so that it looked very much as though they were simply occupying the ground in order to retain it.

When all movement from the city had ceased and the gates were again closed, then the Dark Heptad brought their third occult device into use. This time it came without warning, and Khai was to learn much later why the seven mages had been unable to offer any assistance on this occasion: how the Dark Heptad had worked a spell to counter any possible intervention. As it happened, the new terror was not aimed directly at Khem’s enemies, though certainly it must be effective in the long term.

At first it was thought that the Khamsin had returned, for a great draught of hot, bad air sprang up suddenly from the ground midway between the defending forces and Kush’s encircling warriors and blew outwards in vile gusts that soon had strong men plugging their nostrils and retching horribly. After a little while, as evening drew on, the tomb-like fetor died away and the men in the Kushite lines breathed more easily and were less edgy. Then, just before twilight, the first effects of the Dark Heptad’s injurious magic began to make themselves apparent.

As if the valley of the Nile had not already suffered more than enough, this latest terror seemed designed as one final, crippling blow at a once fertile land. It was a blight—but such a blight as never before had been dreamed of. Slowly at first, but at an ever accelerating rate, the grasses, shrubs and trees where the foul wind had sprung up began to turn yellow and wither. The poison spread rapidly outward, so that the horses of the Kushites where they cropped green grass soon found themselves chewing on stuff which was dry and lifeless. Before nightfall, the trees were so desiccated that many began to snap off at their bases and topple into dust. Shrubs became powder at the merest touch and the very soil seemed turned to sand. As on both previous occasions, the total devastation could not be assessed until the following morning, but when at last the sun rose on Khem the next day—

A desolation of stumps, toppled boles and wind-blown weeds stretched farther than the eye could see, and the only remaining green land lay behind the Khemish positions and beneath the looming walls of the slave city. And not only the forests and grasslands had gone but the animals with them, so that Pharaoh’s design was now clear as crystal. Working through the Dark Heptad of wizards, he had simply reversed the polarity of the siege!

Which is to say that his forces now occupied the only fit ground, and that the only decent supplies of food lay in Asorbes itself. His herds still grazed green pastures beneath the city’s walls, and his soldiers still drank milk and ate meat and honey. But as for the Kushites: when their immediate supplies ran out, then they would have nothing!

It also meant that the siege could not go on as originally planned and that Asorbes must therefore be taken without delay. To this end, before noon, a horseman came and told Manek Thotak that the General Khai was coming to see him. Gahad Shebbithon would also be there, and they must all three make their new plans quickly and effect them without delay.

Manek had meanwhile done some planning of his own, and before Khai arrived, he went forward with a body of his men and called for a parley with the chief of the Khemish commanders. Long, earnestly—and privately— Manek and Pharaoh’s general talked, in a small tent hastily erected on neutral ground, and when at last Manek returned to his own lines he found Khai waiting for him. Since Gahad Shebbithon had not yet arrived, Khai was alone when Manek went to his tent and found him there.

“Wasn’t that a trifle dangerous?” Khai asked after they had clasped arms and exchanged greetings. “Your meeting with Pharaoh’s general?”

“Dangerous? How so?” Manek returned. “There was an honorable Khemish commander, and there was me. We were not armed and I was bigger than he was. In what way dangerous?”

Khai shrugged. “It’s just that you surprise me,” he eventually answered. “Manek Thotak doing a little peaceful chatting with a ‘damned Khemite’— and an ‘honorable’ one at that!”

Manek said to himself: “At least that one doesn’t pretend to the throne of Kush,” but out loud he answered, “There’s been enough innocent blood shed these past months.”

Again, Khai seemed surprised. “Oh? And have you discovered a way to stop the bloodshed ?”

“Aye,” said Manek, “I believe so,” and he paused.

“Well then,” Khai prompted him, “say on.”

“You may take exception to the scheme,” Manek finally warned.

Khai was becoming impatient. “Get on with it, Manek, for you really are beginning to worry me.”

“Well then, what would you say to this—” Manek began, and he quickly outlined all that had supposedly passed between himself and the Khemish commander. Except that every word of it was a lie—but the General Khai Ibizin had no way of knowing that….

“I find the thing incredible,” Khai said when Manek was done.

“You say the Khemish soldiers are mutinous and that they demand a military takeover? And that when this is accomplished, they will open the gates and set free all of the slaves in Asorbes?” Manek nodded. “Aye, that is part of it.” “And that then they will hand over Khasathut, Anulep, the Black Guard and the Dark Heptad to us?”

Again the other nodded. “And what do they get out of all this?” “They get their lives, and a better deal under their new ruler—Ashtarta!” Manek answered. “They get rid of Pharaoh, who they all fear desperately for his madness; and also of Anulep the Vizier, whose plotting has threatened all of them at one time or another. They see the end of the Dark Heptad of wizards, whose spells have reduced Khem— and for all we know of it Kush, too—to a wasteland! They will be spared the sack and destruction of their city, spared the inevitable slaughter of innocent thousands within Asorbes and they will once again rise to become a mighty nation—but under Ashtarta’s rule, whose weapons shall make her new empire utterly unconquerable for all time to come. That is what they will get out of it. What more could they possibly ask?”

Khai frowned. “It all seems too good to be true. Are you sure they’re not just playing for time while those damned necromancers of Pharaoh’s work more hell’s mischief? “

“Playing for time? No, for they desire to see you now, as soon as you are ready, to learn of your reactions to their plan. I can arrange a meeting in a moment, as easily as waving a yellow flag, which is the signal I’ve arranged.

As you say, to waste time is simply to give the Dark Heptad an opportunity to make more magic….”

“And you will come with me to speak to the Khernite commanders?”

Khai asked, still uncertain. “Of course.” “Hah!” Khai snorted. “And they will have us both together, caught like rats in a trap!”