Two Horizons

Chapter 18

  FREEZING NIGHTS IN RED SAND

  Northwest of Annu in the Ta Manu desert chill, God-king Khufu eyed his forces searching yet another escape path of Tehnu nomads after their rampage on a Egyptian village in the western delta. Late again. Egypt found villagers’ corpses—defiled by torn out hearts and genitals—as well as raped wives and daughters, razed huts and Tehnu footprints. But no Tehnu. The drench of blood on every body and every home screamed of the Hituptah priests’ and their retort to the Hap Bull’s bloody death.

  Khufu cast his eyes toward the scarlet sunset that shrouded his enemy. There, waves of sand meshed in an ages-slow meander. Wind and weight sifted the sand into curls and canyons. No living thing disturbed the sand’s slip and rise, slip and rise. Despite Khufu devoting himself to perfecting Egypt as an art, he admitted that here languished the only perfection possible on earth. Friction of sand against sand sighed and hissed without intention or intelligence. Its emptiness sang of destruction. Khufu knew those who heard only the desert song sooner or later submitted to it and committed self-slaughter even if they remained alive. Many combated the song with perpetual anger; they spewed and they fumed and they died. Others ignored it by plugging their ears as if with sand, thus misunderstanding all they heard. Yet, a fourth group balanced the song’s dissonance whenever possible by dancing in the world like the Nile.

  When the God-king tossed back his head to discern the planet Sba aabti, his right ear spiked with pain. The cataract water had breached his ear and was punishing him for his folly there. And, he drifted ever more distant from Theormi and Merhet.

  Windstorm rising and icy night plunging, Khufu whistled his men to halt for a fresh start the next day.

  “Nomads.” Stomping back into the Egyptian camp at midnight, the God-king smacked open the flap of his pyramid-shaped tent. Prince Hordedef waited inside on a cane. “Homeless, artless winds. No home to defend, they ransack us then scurry away like dirty shadows into dirty shadows.” As if still at hunt, his feline eyes darting about the throne, bed and pillows, Khufu careened on stiff legs, barely avoiding the tent’s center pole. “The tem att never sit long enough to produce anything lasting.” At a low table in the far corner, he stopped, grabbed a goblet of pomegranate wine set there, gulped it down, poured another and carried it to his throne near the tent’s center. “How do I strike at what is not fixed down?” Khufu dumped himself on his throne.

  When Khufu looked up, Hordedef winked at him. “I’ve been thinking, Majesty. Shouldn’t we exploit the desert rather than allow it to frustrate us? The Tehnu’s easy escapes indicate that their scouts follow our movements.”

  Khufu tilted his head toward his second son.

  “We should appear to return to Annu, but in actuality conceal ourselves in the sandstorm.”

  Khufu leaned forward. “Their scouts will report to their chief. He will be smug enough to celebrate victory and the nomads will show their snouts.”

  “And using our scouts—strategically positioned—to track their movements ...”

  “We trick them out of their holes.” Khufu punched the air. “Battle at last.”

  Sand drummed the tent. Within, father and son shared wine and design—the attack, scouting and contingencies—cheering on one another with each resolution of the plot they’d execute at dawn.

  Guardsmen rushed into the tent in a flurry.

  “What is this intrusion?”

  “Excuse me, your Majesty,” said one guard, crimping his shoulders in a clumsy bow, “but Vizier Shaf-Khufu concluded the hunt with a reward. He honors me to announce his arrival.”

  Khufu laughed with his second son. “Dramatic Shaf.”

  Princes Heru and Dedephor ducked into the tent. They assumed attention alongside the guardsmen at the entry.

  “The supporting players. Enough, Shaf. Come in already. The suspense is murmurous.”

  Hordedef clucked when the vizier entered.

  Shaf flourished an arm. “Khufu, my God-king, subsequent to our unearthing one million stones in seeking our crawling enemy, I have netted our first Tehnu insect.” With another flourish, the vizier indicated the tent’s entrance.

  Three more of Shaf’s men marched in, holding a young Tehnu nomad.

  “I, Vizier Shaf-Khufu, have captured an enemy scout.”

  “Ah,” Khufu whispered. He stood and, grinning, stalked toward the Tehnu. The King of Two Egypts grasped the nomad’s thick hair and yanked back the head. The captive yelped. Khufu snatched the nomad’s tongue and gripped it. “This flap of skin will tell us what we want to know, won’t it, boy?”

  In the darkness and gritty wind, guards shoved the Tehnu to the center of camp and staked him, tying down his arms and legs. By torchlight, Shaf and Khufu shouted questions at him. The small nomad proved tough. “No, no,” he repeated for hours.

  At sunrise, guards wedged the nomad’s head between stakes that forced him to face the sun throughout the day. They supplied the prisoner no water except for their spit. At nightfall, Shaf began dripping water onto the nomad’s stomach.

  “No, no.”

  On the following dawn, guards sliced off the Tehnu’s eyelids. His eyes crusted with red blisters. At noon, the nomad broke. Through bleeding lips, he screamed answers to every question.

  “At last,” Khufu cried. “We’ll pluck the poison out of these scorpions.”

  “Oh, KhnumKhufwey,” interrupted Shaf, “the difficult job of uprooting these bugs is nearly complete. In glory, safeguard yourself here in your throne chair, sure in the triumph that your vizier will provide.”

  The confounded God-king twisted back toward his vizier. “We wage a battle still.”

  “No, Khufu.”

  “No, Khufu? Change your tongue.”

  “I believe the men shall receive orders from me naturally hereafter, especially due to my routing out the nomad scout. Why not abide in your tent while your vizier brings you the Tehnu chief’s head?”

  “You hyena. I saw you pink and mottled, bawling at the wet nurse’s breast. What is your crying now? Withdraw?” Khufu stabbed a finger at his vizier. “You seek your own glory, not Egypt’s. On the battlefield, men will witness their leader.”

  Shaf gestured an appeal to Hordedef. The second prince proffered his palm. “Khufu is King. Don’t tell me anything else.”

  The battle began before dawn, but sunlight never found the battlefield.

  A simoom that whipped up clouds of scarlet dust eclipsed the sun, abandoning the armies without day or night. Red sand threshed into their eyes, ground in their teeth and clotted their wounds. Egyptian axe and Tehnu mace flailed against one another or human flank. The simoom forbad Egypt its superior bow and arrow. How many hours the battle waged, no warrior could judge except by the rise and the fall of chill.

  Under the snapping Horus hawk flag, the simoom often slung the eldest of four hundred warriors, the living god Khufu, onto one leg. Needing both arms to control his weapon, he chopped the axe head, missing an enemy but blocking the counter blow. “Tem nomad. Strangle in your wind.” With his second slash, Khufu split the nomad’s chin. The nomad crumpled, shrieking. Another leapt into his place.

  To the God-king’s right, Dedephor’s and Heru’s squads swung their axes on the diagonal against screaming and spitting Tehnu who swung maces straight down. Filling out the phalanx to Khufu’s left, Shaf’s and Heru’s squads barely held off nomads. Everywhere the Tehnu attacked with improbable energy, as if their blows raged down from a higher position. Prior to the battle, Khufu had trusted the Egyptians’ greater numbers would discourage the Tehnu. But the bearded nomads seemed to avenge their centuries-long vanquishing from the Nile.

  Hordedef oversaw the battle through the dust from a rise behind the Egyptians.

  Temperature dropping and joint stiffening, Khufu held up his axe in the way a man sinking in quicksand holds up his arms. His heart and veins stung with the need to deliver the battle for his sons and to Egypt.

  A whistle pierced the din.
The nomads opposing Shaf’s squad suddenly retreated. The vizier signaled his men to pursue them.

  “Run them down, son,” yelled Khufu from the whirling sand. The enemy and Shaf faded into the dusky red clouds.

  The God-king saw a nomad rushing at him and hoisting his mace. Khufu heaved his axe with all his waning power, crushing the man’s sternum. The nomad gave way, as did the King. As the nomad hit the ground at his feet, Khufu grabbed his knees to catch his fall. He inhaled a desperate breath.

  The retreating Tehnu re-entered the battlefield and were now running at Heru’s squad on the right. Khufu reasoned that they must have coursed behind the other groups of nomads—shaking off Shaf’s force in the dust clouds—to surprise Heru’s squad. Deploying a dual assault, the Tehnu punctured Heru’s squad at various points and pressed toward the God-king. Some of Heru’s men fell, some retreated. Khufu’s guards beat at the nomads breaching Heru’s defense.

  Khufu’s head pounded. Blood streaked his hands, arms and shoulders. He didn’t consider whether any of it was his. Do something, he told himself. Something.

  “Close in! Close in!” screeched Shaf, leading his squad from the murk and identifying the disaster on the Egyptian’s right flank. “To the King.”

  Scores of Egyptians breathed their last before Shaf scraped to his father’s side and stalled the nomads.

  At a second whistle, the same Tehnu force once more withdrew. Shaf blared at them, “Stay and see how you end.” He and his men again chased the nomads.

  “No!” The God-king’s order disappeared into the simoom’s hiss. Khufu expected the nomads had tricked Shaf again. What could he do? I did not rear my sons to die in a desert.

  Khufu gestured to Heru. “Prepare for attack.”

  Again, the nomads charged out of the dark swirl on the right flank and crashed into Heru’s men. Again, Shaf trailed after and battled to regain position. Again, many Egyptians fell.

  The Tehnu now had the greater numbers.

  Chill began to bite as hard the Tehnu and Egyptians littering the plain as those still standing. Weapons struck without sting. Khufu sucked air before each swat. The Tehnu hacked at him from all angles. Cuts and scrapes across his body numbered as many as the fallen. His heart shuddered. What else justified a God-king to his people but the surrender of his legs and heart, arms and spirit? How do I rescue this battle with my self-sacrifice?

  Hordedef sent down runners relaying a strategy to the squad leaders. The God-king approved it. By waving their arms, the leaders signaled their readiness.

  With a third Tehnu whistle and retreat, no Egyptians followed. Instead, while Heru’s squad on the left flank looped to the right behind the Egyptians, the other squads shifted to the left. When the nomads this time exited the red clouds on the right flank, Heru ambushed them on the run.

  The Tehnu group, surprised and perhaps fatigued by their flights against the wind and sand, were slow to respond. Their force lost cohesion. Individual nomads fought two and three Egyptians. Heru’s initial foray halved the Tehnu onto the sand. Soon, others scattered in chaos. Heru and his men pursued them and ended their nomadic ways.

  With one nomad squad eliminated and Heru rejoining the main battle with scarcely a wound, the Egyptians advanced.

  “Yes, yes,” Khufu said. “We will not die here.”

  Vizier Shaf called, “Save the chief for me.”

  The soiled air began to freeze like a final weapon. Icy sand scalloped the armies. Many nomads lost heart and broke ranks. Some hid in the red-gray clouds. Most found their final lodging.

  Knock of clubs and wail of men subsided. Red frost settled, shrouding the dead and the living. When Khufu had no enemy at whom to swing his axe, it tumbled from his hands. He couldn’t catch his breath or take a step for fear of falling. His breath and bones iced.

  Minutes later, when at least steady, the God-king scanned the hundreds of both armies slumping into the sand. A desert of raw ache spread before him. It dredged up the losing of his first son, blood staining the temple with slow indifference. Ka’ab’s life drifted away like a dream with no dreamer. Khufu recited the vainest prayer for his son to awaken. To be what was.

  Khufu’s heart seized.

  He had instructed his children since they were young, “War is the pastime of ignorant men, in peace dwell the enlightened.” In that time, he’d lost Ka’ab, Merhet, Meritates and Theormi.

  Was.

  Battle muted, Khufu again heard the desert drone. It sang of his failure to raise an honorable Inundation. That truth had been fended off by his jerking himself first to the southern cataract and then to the northern desert. Separated from his Egypt, children and lover, he might as well be a nomad. The drone strengthened. He required no sun shadow to tell him the time. Two seasons had passed without proper water. Drought season swooped in for the carcass.

  Hundreds of miles from Khufu in Egypt’s southern extreme, the campfire smoke of Theormi’s captors pointed down like a stabbing dagger from the bitter cold night. Nearly out of the fire’s light, she was sprawled facedown on the dirt. Only her mind moved; she searched it for escape.

  Four nomads, including the one with gray eyes, sat on their haunches, passing a wine vase and boasting about their female prize. They raped a God-king’s woman. Selling her into slavery in Ta Sety—as the Ptah priests required of them, they’d use the earnings for more women. Soon, the marauders would assault her again ... at Gray Eyes’ lead.

  She learned during their boasting that these men were Wawat, under orders of the Wild Man, Chief Piye. She had protected him from Egyptian invasion with her dream’s murmurings of a gold mountain.

  After a slug of wine, each nomad rolled his increasingly glazed eyes over Theormi. They punched each other’s shoulders and giggled like children. Then their laughing chopped up into snorts and grunts while their punches sharpened.

  This inspired Theormi with a strategy. Twisting around to gaze at the sky, she spotted Sba amenti and thought of Khufu, seeking his strength.

  The four nomads stood and circled the campfire, one chucking alcohol from the vase into it. Giant flames flared. Red shadows convulsed over the men.

  Footsteps beat toward Theormi.

  Gray Eyes hauled her to her feet. Her knees buckled, but Theormi stood. Her arms defied her fury to lift them high enough to claw his eyes. Yet she sliced his cheek. Grey Eyes jerked back. Cursing, he threw her to another man.

  Instead of fighting this second nomad, Theormi clasped her arms around his waist. She kissed him hard on his lips, and then slid her tongue along his neck. The remaining two nomads grunted encouragement. The nomad with Theormi threw off his blanket and jammed his loincloth to one side.

  Wiping at his bleeding cheek, Gray Eyes yelled, “Hey, keep passing her ... until she’s worn out and done with scratching.”

  “’S ready for me.” He gripped Theormi’s tunic in his fists.

  “I’m the head here,” said Gray Eyes.

  But the nomad was already cocking his hips into place.

  Gray Eyes grabbed the nomad’s arm. “I’m first.”

  The nomad let go of Theormi. He squared to Gray Eyes. The men’s eyes glistened red. Golden firelight and black shadows flickered across their faces.

  Theormi dropped to her knees. She told Grey Eyes, “You may be the boss but he’s the bull stud. I want him. He’s a real man.”

  With malicious glee, the two nomads laughed at Gray Eyes. He drew a knife from his tunic. He thrust it at his foe who jumped back, fumbling in his tunic. The other two pulled out their daggers.

  The foe found his dagger. He looked up. Gray Eyes plowed his knife into the foe’s belly. He pulled it out and, in the same motion, slashed it across the man’s neck. The other men closed. Each shoved his knife into Gray Eyes’ ribs. Both victims’ cries gurgled with their vomited blood. The two attackers watched their comrades sag onto the sand.

  Theormi rose and ran.

  The two nomads started after her. Her clumsy feet fumbled he
r panic for speed. A nomad tackled her. She twisted around and punched him in the jaw. With a half-shout and half-yawn, he let her go. Theormi stumbled up the sand dune and into the desert. Now in the dark and thick sand, her legs gave way. She looked back at the two wobbling after her. They closed. She didn’t scream, no one could hear.

  Theormi fell. One nomad landed on her. His breath wet on her neck, he dug his fingers into her hips. She wrenched away and kicked off the other’s hand grasping her foot. The first nomad snatched her by the hair, jerked her down and began dragging her back to the fire while the other teetered alongside. One of them slapped her. She punched back. His red face spat alcoholic sweat as he tripped over his ally. Both men fell.

  Theormi staggered again into the desert dark.

  “Get after her.” On the ground, the men tied up with each other. “Get up.” The other only groaned. “We’re dead if we don’t catch her. If she gets ...”

  Heavy steps came for Theormi. She had no place to hide other than in the dark. She dropped flat on her stomach.

  “Oh Gods, oh Gods,” the nomad snorted. “Where are you, you whore?” He called to the other, “Get up, Alara. We’re dead if we don’t sell her.”

  The desert lit up around Theormi. A burning stick—from the fire—twirled to the ground. “There you are, whore.”

  Theormi bolted up but the nomad jumped on her. Her back cracked. They crashed to the sand. The nomad weighed her down but, as if falling into stupor, began immediately to relax.

  “Oh, Gods, stay awake. Stay awake or you’re dead.” Eyes stiff with terror, he heaved her up and slapped her. She tasted her blood, then saw the man’s eyes glaze over and his lids drape down his eyes. He listed. Theormi slammed her fist on his ear. He crumpled to his knees. He gurgled, breathed hard and rolled onto his side. He snorted twice but didn’t stir.

  Theormi heard a whirring in the air. Something sliced into her back. She fell to her knees beside the snoring nomad. She reached to the wound. Blood dripped over her fingers. She saw a part of the broken wine vase beside her and turned to see the second nomad flat on the ground. He pointed at her. He laughed. His head then conked on the sand. He too began to snore.

  Foolish, foolish men.

  Theormi returned to the camp, grabbed any provisions she could find, mounted a donkey and rode south into the blackness. She rubbed the cut on her back until it stopped bleeding.

  She looked up at the sky and, still in Egypt, thanked Khufu for his strength and cursed him for her exile.

  The night’s icy teeth sharpened. His mother’s bedroom wall biting him with chill where his back propped against it, Mehi sat on the bare ground, his eyes wandering across his sleeping mother three weeks ill. She seemed good, maybe a little thin or pale, but that’s expected. Maybe the sickness had lasted longer than it should, but people get better from this. We must be patient.

  At times, Horemheb poked his head into the room. Father or son responded to the other or didn’t.

  Mehi meant to comfort his mother, but something beastly hollowed him inside. He couldn’t mention it to Wabt. They seldom spoke at length about anything. He recalled that when he’d left their home today, she was sewing him a bandana.

  Khety wakened before midnight. Her every movement occurred in slowed motion. Reading her hazy eyes’ gauging of the mattress, supply baskets and walls, Mehi waited. When her eyes at last came to her son, he said “Hello.” Khety only stared back, her eyes stretched and stark with confusion or alarm. She looked away. She again scanned the room.

  Khety faced Mehi a second time. He repeated his hello. She looked hard at him—and then harder. Her pupils wavered. Mehi squirmed. Then, in a hesitant whisper, Khety asked her son, “Excuse me, but do I know you?”

  A gasp escaped Mehi. His heart pumped. He felt like a rat underwater. He tried to say something, anything, to ease his mother—and himself—but words choked in his throat. Khety grimaced. Red eyes tearing, she dropped her head on the mattress.

  Mother and son remained silent. She closed her eyes to sleep or possibly, as Mehi thought, to avoid seeing what she no longer understood. He rose soon after.

  Mehi dragged into the front room.

  Horemheb said, “What’s wrong?” He lunged toward Khety’s room.

  “No, no, she’s fine. She just said ... she said ...”

  “What?”

  “She forgot who I was.”

  Horemheb sighed. “I thought—“ He paused. “Tu, she’s like that. She ups and forgets me too.”

  Mehi marveled that his father bothered to apologize for his mother and soothe his son. His father’s face even showed warmth. Both parents were distorting before his eyes. He knew no way to deal with this, so he seized on an old emotion. “Why didn’t you get a doctor for her?” The question seethed through his teeth.

  Instantly, Horemheb’s expression narrowed. “From where, high and mighty scribe? With what?”

  “I know someone.” Mehi stomped out.

  Seeking Egyptian warmth in this cooling season, he headed into the red desert. Under the moonless night, Mehi scuffled through the brush and sand. Thoughts of Pabes, An-khi and his mother whirled inside him. Wind swept up. Twice, he forgot where he was headed or what he’d been thinking the moment before. In his efforts to remember, Mehi felt he was retrieving bits of a dream.

  Fixing himself on moving forward so that he’d at least get somewhere, Mehi didn’t at first notice quail feeding on the ground. Suddenly within their covey, he startled them to launch into flight, their frantic flaps like whips threshing upward along him. His heart jolted. Not until the quail took flight did their image on the ground form for him. Instantly, the twin image of their feeding and flapping repeated, repeated again and again. He shut his eyes, trying to calm himself, clamping his hand to his chest, his heartbeat heaving against his palm.

  When Mehi burst into Djedi and Pese’shet’s home, she was sitting in the front room. Pese’shet cut short her greeting, peered at his eyes and, without another word, bustled into the rear quarter.

  Djedi bounded out, in his tunic bedclothes, Pese’shet following. “Mehi, your eyes.”

  “My mother is sick.”

  “Mehi, I’m sorry.”

  “Come take care of her.” Mehi waved and turned back to the doorway. “Come.”

  “Yes, certainly. But, I’ll take care of you first.”

  “What? Let’s go.”

  “Sit here,” Djedi said, indicating a pillow in front of him.

  Mehi all but hopped in place. “I’m not sick. I’m not sick.”

  “Sit.”

  Mehi collapsed onto his haunches.

  The magician held up a small faience bottle. “Put back your head.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

  “Back.”

  Mehi grunted but angled up his face.

  The magician tipped the bottle above his young friend’s right eye.

  Mehi’s legs jittered. His fingers drummed the floor. “Why be happy? What’s the difference?”

  Djedi drew back.

  Mehi jumped up. “My mother now.”

  “Mehi, I need to examine your—”

  Mehi was already halfway out the doorway.

  On the way to Khety on Djedi’s donkey, Mehi said, “I want another dream.”

  Djedi shook his head. “You’ve been too long brooding.”

  Mehi slammed his fist on his thigh. He hadn’t been brooding—his mother was sick. Djedi would heal his mother and Mehi would shame his father. Mehi was bringing a magician; Horemheb brought no one. Mehi sniggered.

  When the two entered the hut, Horemheb was gone. Djedi whisked into Khety’s room. Mehi stayed in the front, angry that his father wasn’t home for him to impress with his fetching of a doctor—the royal doctor. Mehi crossed his arms and paced.

  A brief while later, the magician edged back into the front room. “Your mother’s quite ill.” Djedi positioned his hands on top of Mehi’s shoulders and fixed his eyes on Mehi’s eyes
. He spoke slowly. “Mehi, I’m sorry. I wish I had something else to tell you—little can be done now.”

  “You are going to help her.”

  “I’ll reduce her pain but your mother’s illness is far along.”

  “You’re the doctor. I brought you. Do something.” Mehi’s brow and jaw knotted. His eyes flared. “Don’t let me down, Djedi.”

  The magician leaned back, appraising his friend. “The illness must run its course.”

  Mehi opened out his arms. “I called you now. You’ve got to do something.”

  “I’ll help her with everything I possess.”

  Mehi’s breaths gnawed his throat. He had to escape the hut. He ran out. With nowhere to go.

  Chill chewed Mehi. Racing the new moon as it labored to take on light, he asked neighbors if they’d seen Horemheb and asked himself, Why didn’t I bring Djedi sooner? His answer was to run faster, legs twitching. Wicked shadows were knifing across the ground when he found his father.

  Dancing in an alley.

  Mehi gaped. His mother was dying; his father was dancing. In Horemheb’s every step, beer sloshed from a jug he wavered. Mehi’s heart ground in his chest. His father stumbled up grinning broadly as if his son were some crony to share the jug with. Then, Horemheb recognized Mehi. He slurred, “Hey son, hey.” His eyebrows waggled over his eyes about to close into slumber. His sweet breath curdled Mehi’s stomach.

  Mehi sneered at Horemheb who was barely staying on his feet. “Don’t call me ‘son.’ I don’t know you.” He brushed past his father, hoping to knock him down.

  Horemheb wheeled around toward his son, teetering on one leg. “Hey, hey.”

  Mehi had, by then, cloaked himself in the black night.

  He slogged to his home, the sunset chasing him. Mehi shrugged off Wabt’s offer of dinner. In a kind of sleepwalk, he bumped about the house. When will Mother get well? When will I again connect to her, Wabt, the pyramid? Still, his father’s faithlessness earned Mehi a small joy. His was the stronger love.

  Mehi flopped onto his mat. He wished for peace. Exhaustion wasted him into dream.

  Chased, a red donkey runs wild in the desert. Sand kicks up from its hooves. Fleeing, fleeing, fleeing. Flying lizards swoop at it, scales dripping like drool. Tigers with eagles’ beaks, scorpions with hawks’ wings, leopards with snakeheads all chase it. Sand blocks the donkey’s path ahead. It trips and tumbles. Onto it, the beasts pounce. Ammit—part crocodile, lion and hippo—eater of the dead, is first at its heart. Growling and slavering. The animals feast—

  Breathless, Mehi thrashed at a wet heat pressing on him. He woke enough to realize that he was pushing away Wabt’s sleeping body.