The Rise of Nagash Read online

  “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded in a clear, resonant voice.

  The senior priests looked to one another apprehensively, their disquiet evident in the set of their hunched shoulders and furtive movements. Finally, they turned to Shepsu-het, who gathered his courage and spoke.

  “Time is of the essence, holy one,” he said, his old voice muffled by the mask he wore. “I thought you would wish us to begin the rites at once.”

  Nagash considered the priest for a long moment, and then favoured Shepsu-het with a mirthless smile. At only thirty-two, Nagash was the youngest Grand Hierophant of any city in Nehekharan history, and his physical presence filled the funeral chamber. He was tall for the people of Khemri, and preferred the attire of a warrior prince to the staid robes of a priest. His white linen kilt was bound with a broad belt of fine leather, studded with rubies and gold ornaments in the shape of scarabs. Fine sandals of red leather covered his feet, and a wide-sleeved open robe covered his broad shoulders and the upper part of his muscular arms. His broad, tanned chest bore the scars of battle, earned in the wild years of early adulthood and still stark against his nut-brown skin.

  He had his father’s handsome features but none of Khetep’s warmth, with a square chin and an aquiline nose, but a pair of eyes the colour of polished onyx. His narrow beard was bound in a queue with strips of hammered gold, in the manner of the royal household, and his scalp was shaven and oiled to a lustrous sheen.

  “Once again, you demonstrate why I am Grand Hierophant instead of you,” Nagash said, stepping deeper into the room. He moved with a jungle cat’s grace, gliding almost soundlessly across the stone floor. “You are an old fool, Shepsu-het. I choose to attend upon my father alone.” He waved his arm at the doorway behind him. “Begone. If I need the assistance of a pack of prattling monkeys, I shall send for you.”

  The senior priests quailed before Nagash’s forbidding stare. They rose quickly, as one, and shuffled out of the room. Shepsu-het went last, his expression unreadable beneath the smooth, golden features of his mask. As he departed, the figure of a young priest slipped quietly through the doorway into the chamber. Unlike Nagash, the young man was conservatively attired in a white robe and simple gold belt, but his scarred face was lit with an impudent grin, and his brown eyes were sharp and calculating.

  “That one means you trouble, master,” he murmured, watching Shepsu-het disappear from sight.

  Nagash stepped around the foot of the bier and folded his arms, studying the body of his dead father in detail.

  “I suppose you think I should kill him,” he said absently.

  The young priest shrugged, and said, “He must be a hundred and fifty years old. There are herbs that could find their way into his wine: simple things you could find in the temple kitchens, but deadly when combined in the right way. Or an asp could wind up underfoot in the priests’ baths. It’s been known to happen.”

  Nagash shrugged slightly, listening with only half an ear. His attention was focused on the body before him, looking for clues that would reveal how the priest king had died. Khetep’s skin had a yellow tinge from the natron wash the priests had given the corpse, but it could not fully disguise the body’s grey pallor. Though well advanced in years, at the age of one hundred, Khetep still possessed a measure of the fighting strength he’d enjoyed in his prime. Nagash studied the formation of the king’s muscles, noting with a frown the dark lines of the corpse’s veins and the body’s distended belly.

  “Too much wine and luxury,” he muttered. “Your defeat was written in the sagging lines of your body, father. Your glories made you weak.”

  The young priest chuckled, and said, “I thought that was the point of glories, master.”

  Khefru was the first son of a wealthy merchant family, who had enjoyed spending his father’s coin on wine and games of dice. He’d got the scar that disfigured the left side of his face in a drunken knife fight outside a gaminghouse. His opponent, the son of a powerful noble in Khetep’s court, died a few days later. Rather than face execution, Khefru had begun a new life in the mortuary cult. He was a terrible scholar and an indifferent priest, but possessed a sharp wit and a singular bloody-mindedness that Nagash found useful. He’d chosen Khefru as his personal servant on the same day he’d become Khemri’s Grand Hierophant.

  “Glory is for fools,” Nagash declared. “It’s a poison that saps the will and diminishes one’s resolve. Khetep learned that to his cost.”

  Khefru arched an eyebrow at his master, and said, “No doubt you would have ruled differently.”

  Nagash glared balefully at the young priest. At sixteen he’d followed his father’s army east through the ancient Valley of Kings, and then south towards the steaming jungles that, according to legend, had been the birthplace of their people. For three years Khetep had fought against the hordes of lizardmen that lurked there, beginning construction of the great fortress of Rasetra as a bastion against their constant raids against the allied city of Lybaras. When Khetep was stricken down with the fever, Nagash assumed command of the expedition. For almost six months he’d led his father’s warriors in a merciless campaign against their enemies, finally culminating in the brutal battle that had broken the backs of the local lizard chieftains and pacified the region.

  For those six months, he’d ruled like a king, and held the land in an iron grip, but when Khetep had recovered enough to begin the long trek home, he’d given Rasetra to one of his generals, and brought Nagash back to the Living City with him. The surviving members of the expedition had been forbidden to speak of Nagash’s brief rule. He had been praised as a mighty warrior, but no more, and upon their arrival in Khemri the king sent Nagash to Settra’s temple to begin his studies. Now, thirteen years later, Rasetra was a small but thriving city with a priest king of its own.

  The Grand Hierophant rested his palm on the hilt of the jewelled irheps at his belt.

  “If noble families passed their inheritance to their firstborn, as they do in the barbarian tribes to the far north, things would be very different indeed,” Nagash said. “Instead, fortunes are passed to second sons, and we are shut up in temples.”

  “The firstborn are given to the gods, in return for the Blessed Land they have given us,” Khefru said, reciting the old saying with no small amount of bitterness. “It could be worse. At least they don’t sacrifice us, like they did in the old days.”

  “The gods should take goats, and be content,” Nagash snapped. “They need us far more than we need them.”

  Khefru shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly uncomfortable. He glanced worriedly at the grim-looking statues on the other side of the room.

  “Surely you don’t mean such a thing,” he said quickly. “Without them, the land would wither. The ancient compact—”

  “The ancient compact sold us a bowl of sand in exchange for eternal servitude,” Nagash declared. “The gods offered to make our fields bloom and hold the desert at bay in exchange for worship and devotion. Think on that, Khefru. They were willing to give us paradise in exchange for prayers and the gifts of our firstborn. The gods were desperate. Without us, they were weak. We could have enslaved them, bent them to our will. Instead, we are in bondage, giving them strength that we could better use ourselves. Real power lies here, in this world,” Nagash said, tapping the marble bier for emphasis, “not in the next. Settra understood this, I think. That was why he sought the secret to eternal life. Without the fear of death, the gods would have no hold over us at all.”

  “A secret that has eluded the mortuary cult for more than five hundred years,” Khefru pointed out.

  “That is because our sorcery depends upon the beneficence of the gods,” Nagash said. “All our rites and invocations are fuelled by their energies. Do you imagine they will help us escape their clutches?” The Grand Hierophant clenched his fists. “Do not think I flatter myself when I say I possess the greatest mind in all Nehekhara. In thirteen years I have learned everything the cult knows a
bout the process of life and death. I have the knowledge, Khefru. What I lack is power.”

  As he spoke, Nagash’s eyes grew fever-bright, and his voice rose until it was almost a shout. The intensity of the Grand Hierophant’s emotions stunned Khefru.

  “One day you will find it, master,” the young priest stammered, suddenly afraid. “No doubt it’s only a matter of time.”

  Nagash paused. He blinked, and seemed to collect himself, and said, “Yes. Of course. Merely time.” The Grand Hierophant glanced down at his father’s body. He drew the curved bronze knife at his belt.

  “Bring the first jar,” he commanded. “I won’t have Shepsu-het accuse me of failing in my duties.”

  Khefru went quickly to the waiting alabaster jars and picked one carved with the likeness of a hippo. The canopic jars were made to hold the dead king’s four vital organs, the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines, and were carved with glyphs that would preserve them until such time as they were needed once more.

  The young priest set the heavy jar beside Nagash, and murmured a prayer to Djaf, god of the dead, before pulling off the lid. Nagash held the bronze blade over his father’s belly. He paused briefly, savouring the moment.

  “No sign of a wound at all,” he observed. “Perhaps his heart gave out in the heat of battle.” Khefru shook his head.

  “It was sorcery, master,” he said. “I heard that the army of Zandri called down a spell that smote the priest king and his generals, far behind the battleline. None of the wards laid by our priests could stop it. When Khetep fell, our army lost its heart, and the Zandri warriors hurled our men back in disarray.”

  Nagash considered this, and said, “But Zandri’s patron is Qu’aph. That does not sound like the subtlety of the Serpent God.”

  “Even so, master, this is what I was told,” Khefru said, shrugging.

  Scowling, Nagash reached down and made the first cut, slitting the abdomen from navel to sternum. At once, the king’s belly deflated, spilling a foul, bubbling flood of tarry fluid over the edge of the bier and onto the floor.

  Khefru reeled back from the stinking liquid with a muttered curse. Nagash stepped back as well, frowning in surprise. After a moment, the viscous flood subsided, and the Grand Hierophant stepped carefully through the sticky pool back to Khetep’s body.

  Using the tip of his knife, he added four perpendicular cuts to widen the incision, and pulled one of the flaps of skin aside. The sight of what lay within caused Nagash to hiss in surprise.

  The priest king’s organs had been fused together by some magical force. His intestines and stomach were shrivelled into a knotted ball, until there was no way to tell where one ended and the other began. Likewise, the diaphragm and lungs had been warped into bulbous masses of diseased flesh. It was as though a great cancer had eaten Khetep from within.

  The Grand Hierophant knew of no god who could do such a thing.

  Gingerly, Khefru eased up to the table. When he saw what had become of Khetep, his face twisted in disgust.

  “What foul sorcery could do such a thing?” he gasped.

  Nagash was no longer listening. The Grand Hierophant was bending low over his father’s corpse, studying the great king’s twisted remains with rapt fascination. A strange, hungry gleam shone from the depths of his dark eyes.

  By noonday, the great plaza outside the palace was full of noblemen and their retinues, waiting to offer gifts for Khetep’s interment and to pledge their fealty to his heir. Small tents of brightly coloured linen had been erected by the royal household to shield the nobles from the worst of the sun’s heat, and slaves bustled to and fro with jugs of watered wine cooled by the cisterns deep beneath the palace. The stink of sacrificial animals hung heavy in the still air, as each of the noble families sought to outdo their rivals with lavish gifts of lambs, oxen and even a few precious horses. Nagash scowled forbiddingly at the noxious spectacle as he and Khefru made their way to Settra’s Court. He knew that by the end of the ceremonies the grand plaza would resemble a stockyard on market day. The stench would linger for weeks.

  The crowd grew thicker the closer they came to the king’s audience chamber. A dozen of Thutep’s Ushabti bodyguards lined the broad steps leading into the echoing hall, resplendent in their polished gold breastplates and gleaming swords. The faces of the devoted were young and fierce. Still little more than acolytes, their skin shone with Ptra’s holy blessing, but their bodies had yet to develop the perfectly muscled physiques of the Great Father’s chosen warriors. A hectic knot of palace slaves stood behind the rank of bodyguards, bearing wax tablets and rolls of fine parchment. They circled around a tall, dignified figure of middle years, wearing the gold circlet of Khetep’s grand vizier.

  Nagash moved effortlessly through the multitude, like a crocodile knifing through the dark waters of the Vitae. Slaves scattered from the Grand Hierophant’s path and prostrated themselves on the hot, filthy ground, while their masters fell silent and bent their heads in respect. Khetep’s eldest son ignored them, one and all.

  The Ushabti bowed their heads in turn as Nagash glided smoothly up the sandstone steps, and the palace servants withdrew swiftly into the shadows of the court. That left only the grand vizier, who folded his hands calmly and awaited Nagash’s approach.

  “The blessings of the gods be upon you, holy one,” Ghazid said, bowing his head respectfully to the Grand Hierophant. Though at least a hundred and ten, the grand vizier was still lean and fit, with the quick, hawklike energy of the desert tribes from which he was born. Legend said he’d been a bandit in his early years, but had allied himself with Khetep when the young priest king had tried to bring the desert tribes to heel. Khetep quickly found himself confiding in the bold, clever tribesman, and when the army returned to Khemri, Ghazid went with them. In short order Ghazid was named grand vizier, and he had served the royal household ever since. He proved to be an able advisor and stalwart friend to the king, and many believed that much of the city’s resurgent glory could be rightly attributed to him. His keen blue eyes missed nothing, and he feared neither man nor beast. Nagash had hated him since childhood.

  “Pray, reserve those well wishes for yourself, grand vizier,” Nagash said with a cold smile. “I come to tell my brother that the rites for our great father are complete. He will be laid to rest in the Great Pyramid in just a few hours, in accordance with the wishes of the priests.” The Grand Hierophant bent his head in a semblance of respect. “It will be yet another loss to Khemri when you go into the darkness alongside him.”

  “Alas, holy one, you are misinformed,” Ghazid replied smoothly, “no doubt due to your grief and the duties of your station. Alas, Khetep has forbidden me from accompanying him into the underworld. As he lay dying on the battlefield, he commanded that I remain to guide his son through the early days of his reign.”

  “I… see,” Nagash replied. “Such a thing is unprecedented. It is a great honour, of course.”

  “And a great responsibility,” Ghazid added. His blue eyes regarded Nagash steadily. “Times of peace and prosperity tempt otherwise reasonable people to make rash decisions.”

  The Grand Hierophant nodded gravely, and said, “Wise words as ever, Ghazid. I can see why my father valued your counsel so much.”

  Ghazid waved his hand dismissively. “Your father never truly needed my counsel,” he replied. “If anything, he often brooded too much over his decisions. If I did anything for him, it was to prompt him to take action when the situation warranted it. Better a swift blow to kill a viper before it can rear up and threaten to strike.” Nagash’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

  “Well said, Ghazid. Well said.”

  The vizier smiled, saying, “I am pleased to be of service, as always,” he replied, bowing his head once more. He stepped aside, gesturing to the court’s open doorway. “Your brother is receiving offerings from the city’s embassies as we speak. He will be pleased to hear your news.”

  Nagash nodded brusquely and resumed his swift pace,
passing between the massive sandstone columns supporting the roof of Settra’s Court and into the presence of the towering basalt statues of Asaph and Geheb, who stood to either side of the towering doorway. Geheb stood to the doorway’s right, his left hand clutching the sickle of the harvest and his right hand held up in a gesture of warding, keeping out spirits of misfortune or malevolence. Asaph held her hands crossed over her breast in greeting, her glorious face serene and inviting. Gold leaf decorated the goddess’ headdress and the bracelets upon her wrist, and shone from the curved blade in Geheb’s hand. The idols were a display of enormous wealth and power. The rough basalt alone had taken ten years and cost the lives of more than four thousand slaves to bring it from the Brittle Peaks to the east, but they paled in comparison to the great hall that lay beyond.

  Settra’s Court was a rectangular chamber more than two hundred paces long and forty paces wide, bordered by great columns of polished marble that supported a ceiling forty-eight feet above the gleaming stone floor. The sandstone walls and floor had been faced with square sections of rich, purple marble, shot through with veins of onyx and gleaming gold that glowed in the light of scores of polished bronze oil lamps situated along the length of the chamber. The air inside the grand, echoing space was cool and fragrant, perfumed with costly incense burnt in braziers near the grand dais at the far end of the hall.

  In ages past, Settra’s Court had been the grandest audience chamber in all Nehekhara, surpassed only by the extravagance of the White Palace at Quatar some centuries after Settra’s death. In these times, the entire nobility of Khemri could fit inside the lofty space, with room to spare for their families and slaves. Today, however, the audience chamber was crowded nearly to bursting, the murmur of voices mingling together in a steady, surf-like roar that echoed in the space between the huge pillars. Even Nagash was, for a moment, taken aback by the sheer spectacle that lay before him.