Kitabı oku: «And His Name Is Dennitza. Daughter of Dawn», sayfa 4

Bloody hieroglyph

«If the Nile was filled with blood, and not water, then she would have lived there».

It was Ujai’s voice. Taor did not immediately notice him, and he, it seems, did not notice anything at all, except for his sore hand, which he swaddled with bandages and rocked gently, like a child. He himself seemed to be hiding from everyone and still talked with someone in the void. It seemed that he was absolutely sure that he saw some interlocutor in front of him, although the palace corridor was empty. He must have lost his mind from the injury.

It would be most reasonable to pass by, but Taor decided to show his concern and squatted down in front of the victim.

«Can I help you with something?»

Ujai looked at him like an enemy and even bared his teeth like a beast. Taor was not offended. It was already a sad sight before him. The man is alive, and his hand is already mummified, although not torn from the body. Something was stirring under the bandages. How strange! A withered hand cannot move like a living creature. Or something other than dry flesh is buried under the bandages. Taor remembered the birds that had been slaughtered. Suddenly, crazy with grief, Ujai has bandaged a live bird there, and it is now swarming in its death throes? Or is something bursting out of his body? An absurd idea, but so persistent.

The young man did not know what to say, how to entertain or console the person who seemed to need nothing, but Ujai suddenly spoke himself.

«Did you encounter something similar there, on the battlefield, where you were sent?»

What a meaningful phrase for a madman. Taor was alert. So the man in front of him still has not lost his mind?

«What unusual could I encounter there?» There really was a lot of indescribable happening, but let Ujai touch on this topic himself.

«With creatures that maim or burn people with just one touch, and at the same time look incomparable, although they are still creatures,» his tongue twisted, but his thought was sober. Taor remembered the dead who were resurrected and those who seemed impossible to kill.

«I’ve seen a lot,» he said carefully.

«You’ll see more here», Ujai drawled derisively. «Because here, in the palace, she settled».

«Who is she?» Taor did not dare to ask anyone about it. For some reason, it became scary to just ask a question about what worried him. «Pharaoh’s daughter? The daughter of some priest who taught her to conduct the mysteries? A child of one of the gods themselves?»

Ujai just shook his head. He did not know, only speculated.

«Pharaoh called her daughter. At first. But she appeared suddenly, already being an adult and… winged. No matter how hard it is to believe it, the wings are alive, they grow from her back».

«Did you check?»

«Yes».

«How?»

«By chance. I touched her as she walked by».

«Has your hand started to dry out since then?» Taor guessed.

«No,» Ujai shook his head sadly. «Here the point is different. The first time I just got a little burned. It was necessary to be more prudent, but what can be done here when she walks nearby, right through the palace… Now no one calls her just a princess anymore. She seemed to have become a ruler herself. As if God came down from heaven to rule alongside the Pharaoh».

«What about Queen Nefertiti? News reached me that not so long ago Akhenaten made her his co-ruler».

«Where do you see her here?» Ujai expressively looked around the empty space.

In some ways, he was right. Taor himself noticed numerous changes in the order of life in the palace. All representatives of the royal family, who had at least some kind of power, disappeared, as if they were deliberately kept under lock and key. The Pharaoh himself, sitting on the throne, seemed just a puppet.

Otherwise Taor would not have thought of interfering in the natural course of someone’s power struggle, much less making inquiries. It’s none of his business. Asking about something like that, he brazenly climbs into other people’s secrets. But Alais… Her face… She seemed not at all a stranger to him. He wanted to know something about her, and what he did not understand himself.

Ujai’s diseased limb should have been a warning to him. Something similar can happen to him if he pokes his nose where he should not.

Taor moved a little away from Ujai and watched his dry hand vibrate slightly under the bandages. What if you take a blade and cut them off his hand? What will he see then?

Taor could hardly resist the temptation to check. After all, he is a warrior. He saw a terrible death, and an unusual infection, and even the living dead in the last war. What he sees under Ujai’s bandages shouldn’t scare him too much after that.

This was the very place in the garden by the pond where Alais performed the ritual with the slaughtered birds. Ujai just reminded him of a bird so withered that it only remained to be buried in the ground. He stopped looking like a living person. Anubis seemed to have forgotten to come for him in time, and the dry shell remained moving to live. But how long is it? The movements of the living corpse became more and more sluggish.

He wanted to say something else to Taor, but his language clearly did not obey. Then Ujai raised his good hand to his mouth and bit his own finger. The blood went slowly, there was little of it, as if it had almost dried up inside the body, but it was enough for him to draw a hieroglyph on the wall. Only one. And, probably, he drew it incorrectly, because there was not enough strength for the clarity of the lines. Taor did not know such a sign. You can’t read it. And Ujai won’t write more. His hand dropped limply.

«Let’s go! I will take you to your chambers». Judging by his condition, much cannot be done for him. It is unlikely that he will last long. But you can do at least something to make him a little easier. Experienced doctors are familiar with drugs that help at least forget, if not relieve pain.

«Leave him alone!» The imperious voice made Taor flinch. He was like steel. You won’t even hear such notes from commanders in war. The very tone made him obey.

Taor gave up his vain attempts to lift the seriously ill man to his feet and turned around. Before him stood the high priest of Aton himself. No security. No accompanying persons. Well, isn’t it amazing.

«He likes to bask in the sun,» Merira nodded at the unfortunate man, as if he were some inanimate object. «After all, the sun is all that we live by now».

«But he’s trying to stay in the shadows,» Taor looked back in bewilderment at Ujai, who was hiding in the shadows, entwined with plants, of a column. The hieroglyph inscribed in blood stood out strangely on it.

«Do you know what this man wanted?

«To touch the burning solar disk and not burn out?» Shrugging his shoulders, suggested the young man.

Merira looked at him like he was a complete idiot.

«Destroy you completely. Do you even recognize him?»

«It’s hard to recognize him, but it’s still him».

«And if he feels good again, he will continue his fight for the first place, and, most likely, he will destroy you, as he intended at the beginning. Do you allow this?»

«Quite. I already had the experience of communicating with him when he was healthy», Taor wanted to turn around again to look at the bloody hieroglyph again, but Merira watched him so closely that it was uncomfortable.

«What kind of person would want to help his worst enemy?»

«The one who sees that he needs a doctor».

«He doesn’t need him.» The high priest avoided looking back. «It’s too late to do anything».

Taor himself was aware of this, but he could not pass by the person whom no one else helps. He could not understand how, in a palace full of servants and slaves, no one was still concerned about the state of the honored guest, who suddenly became ill.

The priest’s hand tugged urgently away.

«Let’s go to!»

«But where!»

«If you want to achieve a high position here at court, you shouldn’t ask too many questions,» Merira said condescendingly.

«But I don’t want to,» Taor admitted honestly.

Merira stopped and looked at him carefully, as if checking to see if there was even a drop of lie in this.

«That’s what I wanted to hear,» he admitted unexpectedly.

«Simplicity!» the high priest led him to a strange place, more like the sanctuary of the old gods, located in the recess of the basement of the palace, far from everyone. «Simplicity is exactly what I’m looking for in a person. I need someone like you. Anyone who is not looking for any benefits specifically for himself. Man is higher than all people».

It seems that somewhere between the pillars, painted with hieroglyphs, huge wings, the size of a man, flapped. Taor gazed there. Nowhere else is there a rustle or movement. He gazed up at the low ceilings, still painted with images of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu.

«This room has not yet been redone properly», Merira led him a little forward. «Tell me, have you ever wondered why a previously little-known god suddenly became the only god of Egypt?»

Taor just shrugged.

«I don’t know much about anything. It is better to ask me about swords, about fighting techniques, about strategy, about war, about how to defend yourself and protect others, about how to lose as few people as possible in battle and at the same time win. This is an area in which I can answer any question, but everything else is beyond my comprehension».

«For example, why people here, in the palace, are ready, without any threat of war, to gnaw each other’s throats in order to make their way a little higher to the sun, that is, to the royal throne…»

«All people have their own desires».

«And they all contradict each other, so you can’t make everyone happy. Someone will still become angry with another, who, in their opinion, received more, and intrigue».

«Perhaps the new god will do something to change this».

«Aton!» Merira seemed genuinely amazed.

«Well yes! After all, the sun equally warms everyone with its rays», – Taor remembered a new image of Aton with the royal ureus on his head and rays extending from him. For some reason, these rays looked more like severed human hands than a source of all the warming heat. «When it rises to dispel the darkness, one can believe that its light brings the same benefit to everyone». And evil desires simply do not remain.

He recalled the dawn over the field of his last battle. Before his rays, all the corpses in the darkness seemed to be the same cesspool. The bodies of companions, eaten by vultures, evoked pity, animals that have no name seemed to crawl right out of the ground and tore the flesh of the still living wounded, and dead enemies, who did not rise more painfully, but looked with empty eyes at the sky, as if beckoning to themselves, demanding only one thing for him to taste their dead flesh. He could hardly resist then. The urge to eat carrion and drink blood was almost unbearable, but the sun rose and it passed.

«Perhaps it’s for the best that the sun god is now the only one,» Taor said earnestly.

Why did the high priest of Aton look at him with slight pity, as a man who was deliberately mistaken?

«Do you already know that the Pharaoh is going to move the capital from Thebes to another city?»

«To Memphis?»

«No, to a city that doesn’t even exist yet, but construction is about to begin», Merira beckoned him with his hand to papyri with some drawings, casually laid out on a low table. «The city that will be named after Aton. And it will not be like all those cities that you have seen so far. Its population will also not be composed exclusively of people». Merira stopped, as if someone had hit him in the mouth.

«That is, the population of the city will not consist only of Egyptians?»

«Probably,» Merira began to choose his words more carefully. «What if you knew that the sun god would make the city and all of Egypt prosperous for everyone, but it would cost the life of someone special, for example, the winner of a recent war, a hero who has no equal… What if you knew that his blood is so dear to the gods that sacrificing it can buy peace and prosperity for centuries. Would you allow yourself to be sacrificed?

«Everyone dies someday», Taor kept looking around, looking for huge wings, but in vain. «Every time I go into battle, I know there’s a better chance that I don’t come back alive. So what? Have I given up even one battle? Only people who are weak in consciousness and scoundrels value life. A worthy person should not be afraid of death. Moreover, death is something that inevitably awaits everyone».

«Alas, not everyone remembers this. Many believe that they will live forever like gods…»

Here they are! Again! He heard the rustle of wings. But you can’t follow them with your eyes.

«If Aton demands my life, I will give it, without regrets, Taor admitted, «just tell me whether you saw the sun god live, right in front of you or near the king’s throne. A living deity with wings, skin glowing with gold, golden eyelashes and hair. To whom, no matter how you, it could have come true, because you are its chief priest».

And silence. Merira was in no hurry to say anything in response.

Taor was still looking around, hoping to spot a winged silhouette somewhere, even though such absent-mindedness was disrespectful to the interlocutor. However, as a mindless warrior, they could forgive him a lot. He often acted ridiculous, but they tried to ignore it.

«Pharaoh ordered to show you special honors», the high priest remembered very aptly. «They say that what you did there, in the deserts, far from Egypt, means a lot to all of us. Before you, others were sent there who did not cope and died. Have you seen their remains there?»

«No,» Taor tried to remember exactly. «Some of the attackers took off military clothing from the corpses and continued to fight in it, obviously to confuse us».

«Savages», stated Merira. «But you better not tell anyone about their antics. Your ill-wishers may decide that you deliberately finished off still living competitors».

«How competitors can be those who are fighting on your side?»

«Trust me, they can always».

Taor wanted to ask again about the golden deity, but he could hardly restrain himself and said nothing. Merira probably heard his first question as well. If the priest wants, he will answer. He cannot know nothing about Alais. But instead of her, he tried to draw the young man’s attention to the scattered drawings on papyrus.

«All those temples of Aton that are being built now in all the cities of Egypt, it seems, are few», he stated. «In Memphis, in Heliopolis, in Fayum, in Hermopolis, in Gemm-Aton, here in Thebes. Throughout the temple for her».

For her!? Taor frowned. Could he have misheard? He could well, given that he was not listening carefully. All this did not bother him much; he wanted to talk about something completely different. Even Ujai, although a little insane, gave out much more information than this secretive priest. Merira tried to talk about many things, but about nothing. He seemed to be waiting for the initiative from Taor himself, trying to push him into something.

«And now this new city, where a temple called «House of Aton» is already being built. It is being built amazingly quickly. We can say that construction is advancing above human strength. The city is growing as if from under the sand, and the plans of other builders and temples for other gods are all destroyed», Merira hesitated a little, as if pondering how much to say now. «The city will be located north of Thebes, it will be called the Horizon of Aton, Akhetaton. And that’s all, the only god of all things will live there forever and begin to accumulate strength in order to manage all the lands from there, both those that we already own and those that we will own. Both Upper and Lower Egypt, united into one, and possessing numerous provinces, as a result, will become too small for the new god, and he will take over the whole world.

«Is it bad?» Taor could not understand whether Merira was offering him some honorary position in an unfinished city or sending him to conquer new territories.

«Everyone who thought it was bad…» Merira hesitated. «You know, I’m not the first high priest of Aton, since this shining god took over all Egypt under his rule, before me there were others. There are records of Tutu, my predecessor…

Merira, looking around nervously, beckoned the young man to follow him and pointed to a chain of inscriptions that streaked one wall. Taor only had time to read the first lines.

«The massacre of the unwanted…» this slightly alerted him, and then he noticed in the center the very hieroglyph that Ujai had recently drawn with blood. He didn’t know how to read it. The hieroglyph stood out clearly among the others, and seemed to erase the meaning of everything.

«What does it mean?» Taor turned to his interlocutor.

«Well, how can I tell you…» Merira was extremely careful, as if the walls themselves could overhear their conversation. «Not everyone liked to abandon old traditions, sacrifice their churches and positions. Different gods gave much more opportunities for different people than if everything belongs to someone alone and only he should be worshiped, to make sacrifices, both bloody and symbolic. Those whose temples were rich from the offerings to Set, Horus, Mut, Osiris and many other gods at first opposed. But she brutally suppresses resistance…»

«He», found the strength to correct Taor, noticing between the columns a new image of Aton with the royal uraeus and rays pulling down like severed human hands.

The priest seemed to have been hit.

«You know, they say that the gods are actually sexless,» he said apologetically.

«I’ve never heard of such a thing.» Taor’s black eyebrows furrowed painfully. «I didn’t want to ask about the gods at all,» he turned to the wall, «but about this symbol».

All you had to do was poke your finger in the middle, where the hieroglyph was located, a little larger in size than all the others, but it was no longer there. He could not crawl away like a scarab. The young man looked in bewilderment at the place where the sign had just been. It seemed that all the hieroglyphs were now sprinkled with something brown, like crushed cloves or caked blood. There is just little light and little air. Taor felt a little dizzy. Then he clearly discerned the flapping of wings in the silence.

«Is there anyone here besides us?»

«Not likely», the high priest said with pressure, and nevertheless looked around warily, as if expecting some witness to follow them. «You probably get bored away from people. You’re used to being with the army all the time».

«I’m not complaining about anything. Since I returned from the war, here in the palace everything has changed a lot, not even the setting, the atmosphere itself. At first it was strange, but now I began to like it here, as if I was finally at home».

«But others would give everything to escape from here, but in essence there is nowhere to run. Changes, like an infection, spread from the capital to all distant corners, and then outside the country».

Taor was not afraid of change and did not intend to oppose them like those about whom the warning notes were made. Firstly, he would never and in no way oppose the decree of the pharaoh, because, in fact, the ruler sitting on the throne is the only god for his people, only he has the right to give orders, say what is right and what is not, the lot of subjects is to obey him. It is not for nothing that the ruler of Egypt is revered as the representative of the gods on earth. Secondly, the young man was not particularly religious. The gods in various temples, no matter how many there were, existed for him as something self-evident, but inanimate. People worshiped them, brought gifts to the priests, performed rituals, but all this was more like a background surrounding the true power, not divine, but royal. The more Taor was amazed when he saw in the palace a living creature, similar to the deity that believers can only describe in words. There weren’t even such statues. Deity incarnate. Taor did not know with whom or with what to compare him.

«Have you ever been in love?»

The priest’s question surprised him.

«I don’t remember that,» Taor admitted honestly.

«Then it’s strange how a young man like you, who’s not curious about anything but martial arts, can act so generously.

Taor stared at him blankly.

«On the day when you were honored as a winner, you gave the impression of a lover who is ready to give up all awards for the sake of one specific object or at least his attention», the priest wisely explained.

«Nothing like that,» Taor turned sharply over his shoulder. Again he heard wings flapping somewhere.

«Explain this to me: you return with victory and spoils of war, you can ask for wealth, for your own advancement to the very top, even for the hand of the princess, if you wish, but… in the moment of your glory, you tried to trample yourself, asked for which you could only be punished – for the benefit for others, for your own enemies, to be honest».

«So what?» Taor was sincerely surprised. Why return again and again to the events of days gone by? They didn’t bother him anymore. He got his request granted.

«A normal person could understand you if, say, you were so delighted with all the women who were taken away to the full that you decided to take them to your harem without sharing with anyone».

«I don’t have my own harem».

«And you don’t even want to have it?»

«So far I have managed».

«Why not?»

«I believe that abstinence strengthens the will. Physical passions make people weak. The worst of all warriors are those who seek the attention of whores at night».

«But now it’s not a war, you could relax».

«I prefer to keep in shape».

«You’re the only one here,» said Merira pointedly. «All other people I know behave differently. Many people like both girls and boys. You’re pretty handsome. The royal daughters were staring at you. Do you want to know in what words they praised you?»

«No», Taor wanted to ask more about the golden creature, which he saw first in the throne room, and then at the eerie night festival, but is it reasonable to start this topic again if he has not already been answered. «And Akhenaten does not have another adult daughter, whom I have not yet been introduced?»

«Well, if we talk about children lost in a harem, then there are dozens, even hundreds… without the grace of Pharaoh, they are nothing».

«So maybe he decided suddenly to elevate one of them? Or did he have another royal wife, no older than his daughters?»

«What made you think like that?»

«I…» Taor for some reason did not want to confess directly. «Suddenly the choice of a new god must be strengthened by the choice of a new wife, even more radiant than everyone that came before her. Match the sun god».

«This is a clever thought,» Merira paid tribute. «But I’m afraid that the Pharaoh is not interested in women at all: neither the queen, nor the girls from the harem, nor mere mortals».

«So what is he interested in me because someone called my face attractive?»

«Believe me, if Akhenaten were suddenly interested in young men, it would certainly be you,» something in the priest’s honey-flowing voice suggested that it was not empty praise. «You see, you are a little like a certain guest who once visited here a long time ago and disappeared forever. But our ruler cannot forget him to this day. Although the resemblance is very distant, you probably remind him of that friend».

«So, therefore, my request was immediately executed, and I myself remained a guest here. In memory of someone I don’t know».

«Not really,» Merira carefully took him by the elbow and pointed in the direction of the exit. «We shouldn’t stay here long. Besides, you have become too pale, you need fresh air».

Taor felt it himself, his throat squeezed like a stranglehold, as if someone’s thin fingers were choking him. This is all from the stale air, he thought to himself, but the feeling of someone’s presence near him was truly oppressive. As he left, the young man carefully looked around. The symbols of the old gods were all not scraped off the walls and columns, their clay figures were not removed, and the sculpture with wings in the distance did not depict any of the gods known to him at all. So who was it then? Taor rushed there to look, but the priest’s hand held him with unexpected strength. At the first moment, the young man was taken aback, he did not even suspect that the old man still had so much strength.

«Who is it?» He breathed into the void.

«Never mind!»

«I don’t know the name of this god».

«This is just a fantasy of an insane sculptor who died long ago. And not God, and not Pharaoh, and not anyone from the royal house. Just an idol».

«I would like to take a closer look».

«Not worth it! He’s not here for long. And my advice to you, if you see him elsewhere in the palace, at any new place, just walk by, do not look closely at him, do not linger around».

«I liked him».

«Not for you alone».

Merira, as promised, took him out into the fresh air, using some other entrance than the one through which they had come. From this, the royal palace suddenly began to resemble a labyrinth to Taor. There were so many entrances and exits, connected by a complex of passages and galleries that invariably led to new gardens or huge halls. The pond was the center of every garden, in which the blue lotuses, formerly a sacred plant, bloomed. Is it still sacred now that the gods have disappeared? Freshness emanated from the flowers and water, but the weight of the invisible stranglehold around his neck did not wane.

«A drowned woman was recently found in this pond. They say that the freshness of death comes from water».

Why did the priest tell him this? Taor did not understand, but the pond really gave the impression of a very cold place, in a garden where unbearable heat reigned. The walls of the arches nearby were hot, and the pond looked like liquid ice.

Apple and peach trees grew all around. Taor suddenly noticed a ripe red fruit being plucked from a branch by a golden claw. Drowsiness and fatigue immediately disappeared. He looked at the lush treetops here and there, but no longer noticed any movement.

The garden seemed to be teeming with snakes, although they were not visible. Although a slithering body glowed in the grass, it was bright gold. Are snakes gold? Real snakes, not those that were dreamed of. Taor watched the bright golden beam.

«Do you have friends here at court?» suddenly asked him Merira.

«Just one,» he meant Prince Smenkhkara.

«And those people from the wild tribe, whom you decided to save life, you most likely do not even know by name».

It was more of a statement than a question, but Taor nodded anyway. He did not even know their language and, naturally, could not ask them about their name. There were no translators on the road either. The strange, hissing adverb turned out to be very rare, and it was somewhat frightening. From what he said later, his ears ached.

«You have spared unusual people. They are not like the Egyptians».

«Many tribes and peoples are not like us, take at least the people of Nubia with their dark skin. Nevertheless, the Nubians are now guarding us, standing with halberds at many of the doors of the palace».

«But those recent prisoners with their earthy skin tones… I think they need protection from themselves,» the priest expressed fears.

Taor also saw at the feast how greedily they grabbed food with their claws and pounced on the raw meat of fallow deer and antelope in the kitchen. He attributed this temporary madness to the horrors of war. What peaceful person does not lose his mind from them?

«They will recover over time and will behave like all people,» he tried to justify their behavior.

«And those who didn’t behave like people from the very beginning,» Merira reminded carefully. «I mean the man who attacked you on the day you returned. The senior vizier expresses fears, he believes that by encroaching on you, this man insulted the Pharaoh himself, because on that day, as a winner, you represented his greatness and the greatness of his people. The perpetrator can no longer be forgiven. But if you know that asking for his pardon will cost you your own life, you will say it anyway».

«Yes», Taor carefully looked at the priest, he seemed to be testing him.

«But why? What are the others to you? Why are you willing to forget about yourself for the mercy of people you don’t even know?»

Taor thought for a second. He didn’t know it himself.

«It’s just so right,» he said, and immediately someone pressed against his face and looked straight into his eyes, for so long and deeply that it became scary. For just a second, something inhuman and invisible pressed against him, but this second seemed like an eternity. And that’s all. No one else is around. Except for the old priest.

Taor sighed as if it were the last breath of his life. Something just happened. Something that irreversibly changed everything. And he could not even understand what it was. But he saw in the rays of the sun a figure with wings at the far arch of the garden. The smooth wall next to her now seemed like a kind of entrance to who knows where. The winged creature collected all the sunlight on itself. It shone. The left hand moved smoothly and drew some unidentified symbol high on the wall – the same hieroglyph, the meaning of which Taor did not know. And again it was written in blood. But not with the blood of Alais. A headless rattlesnake fluttered in her hands.