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“That’s it, my brother and sister! Stay in step, just like that!”
The massive war elephants lumbered across the plot of land, cheered on by their “brother”, Akhu and his apprentice, Amat.
Akhu was a genius. One of many in the wondrous country of Menu-Kash, yet Akhu had a knack for invention never before seen in the history of this land of grand pyramids, libraries filled with tomes of mystic texts and schools of healing, art, culture and science. The elephants – Fusii and Gahs – had been Akhu’s companions since he was a toddler. They, like Akhu, possessed intelligence greater than any other of their species. Akhu’s uncle – the revered and feared leader of the armies of Menu-Kash, General Mu Ankh-Kara – had charged the elephants with protecting Akhu when his parents failed to return from an exploration of Sakadaah – the cold desert in the northwest.
“Amat, now!” Akhu commanded as he yanked on a lever that protruded from the arm of the ebony couch in his litter. Amat mirrored Akhu’s movements and suddenly, the litters began to smoothly slide sideways toward the ten-foot gap between elephants. Akhu jumped to his feet. Amat followed suit.
The litters came together with a click, forming a covered bridge.
“It works, my Neb!” Amat shouted, jumping up and down with glee.
Akhu hugged his apprentice and kissed the top of her cleanly shaven head. Amat’s cocoa skin tinged red. “We did it Amat!”
Gahs raised his head and a sound like a blaring trumpet escaped his throat.
“Apologies, Gahs,” Akhu shouted, winking at Amat. “You performed brilliantly! You too, my sister!”
Fusii nodded her massive head and raised her trunk in approval.
“This will make a perfect base for Ra’s Rain, my Neb.”
“Yes, it will,” Akhu replied. “Let’s set up the tripod and...”
A deep, roaring noise – like the sound of a gale wind – stifled Akhu’s tongue.
Akhu drew his scimitar from its sheath and slashed inward, toward his chest. The steel blade crashed into a massive, stone maul. An outward slash sent the war hammer careening back toward its thrower – a hulking figure standing in the grass below.
Akhu somersaulted from the litter-bridge toward the large man beneath him. The man reached up and caught the shaft of his maul as Akhu landed in a kneeling position before him. Akhu placed his sword at the man’s feet and bowed his head.
“Uncle,” Akhu said.
“Fast reflexes, boy,” the man said, pulling Akhu to his feet.
“I was trained by the best, my Neb,” Akhu replied, smiling warmly.
“That you were, boy! That you were!”
Both men laughed as they embraced each other. Akhu’s uncle looked up toward the bridge.
“Apologies if I frightened you, Amat.”
“Apology accepted, General Mu,” Amat replied. “How are you today, my Neb?”
“My heart is heavy, Amat,” General Mu sighed. “For today, I have to leave you lot to kill a dead man.”
Akhu’s brow furrowed as he stared into his uncle’s piercing, brown eyes. “You speak in riddles, uncle Mu. Kill a dead man?”
“The Shekhem’s daughter has been kidnapped by the wizard, Sa-Seti.”
“The Sa-Seti? Shekhem of seven centuries ago?” Akhu inquired.
“Yes,” General Mu replied. “It appears that rumors of Shekhem Sa-Seti’s death have been...exaggerated.”
“Undead?” Akhu asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
General Mu answered with a nod.
“I will accompany you, then.”
“No,” General Mu said with a wave of his maul. “The Shekhem would have my head if the most brilliant mind in Menu-Kash died on my watch. Besides, how tough can one mummified sorcerer – with untold magic power – be?”
“Tread carefully, uncle Mu.”
“Always, son,” General MU said, embracing Akhu. “Always.”
General Mu turned away from his nephew, tossed his maul over his thick shoulder and sauntered off.
Akhu looked up to the litter-bridge at Amat. “Let’s run Ra’s Rain through its paces. We may have use for it soon enough.”
––––––––
Akhu lay in his bed, but sleep eluded him. Three days had passed and General Mu and his elite Jackal Squadron – warriors specialized in the hunting and killing of practitioners of dark magic – had not returned home.
Suddenly, Amat rushed into Akhu’s sleeping chamber. Her face was a mask of worry. “My Neb, please, forgive the intrusion, but...”
Akhu sprang out of bed. “What is it Amat? What’s wrong?”
“Your uncle has returned, my Neb, but he is...not well.”
“Not well?” Akhu echoed. “What, exactly, is wrong with him?”
“He is in the courtyard, my Neb. Please, follow me.”
Amat turned on her heels and darted out of the room. Akhu followed her out to the courtyard. General Mu sat on his haunches. His tan, linen vest and trousers were drenched with sweat and he shivered violently as the cool, night air slithered across his chest and down his back. The General’s maul and his red, studded leather armor lay in a heap beside him. General Mu’s helmet had rolled from his lap and lay, bottom up, a few feet in front of him.
Akhu ran to his uncle and knelt beside him. “Uncle Mu! What happened? What’s wrong?”
“They...they came at us from all directions,” General Mu replied. “Thousands of them!”
“Thousands of what?” Akhu asked.
“Beetles,” General Mu groaned. “Beetles the size of men! Beetles that were men! Goddamned beetles!”
General Mu collapsed onto all fours. Sputum erupted from his mouth and cascaded into his helmet.
Akhu and Amat pulled the ebon-skinned goliath to his feet. “Let’s get you to bed, uncle,” Akhu grunted as he struggled to support General Mu’s massive weight with his shoulders.
“You must see the Shekhem, boy,” General Mu croaked. “Take my scepter; show it to the guards. They will let you pass. Warn the Shekhem, boy!”
“Warn him? Of what?”
“Sa-Seti allowed me to live so that I could deliver this message to the Shekhem – he has three days to return Sa-Seti’s hand, or Ta-Sut is dead and all of Menu-Kash will soon follow.”
****
Shekhem Tehuti Ur-Amun rubbed his goatee with his right hand, which – as always – was encased in a crimson, silk glove. He studied Akhu, who knelt before him.
“And what is General Mu Ankh-Kara’s condition now?”
“He is feverish; nauseous; and grows weaker with each passing hour, your Majesty.”
“A curse?”
“It appears so, your Majesty.”
”Perhaps the General’s talk of me returning Sa-Seti’s hand is just the ranting of a man wracked by fever, then.”
Akhu shot a glance at the Shekhem’s gloved appendage. “I think not, your Majesty.”
The Shekhem smiled wryly. “You have always been a clever boy Akhu Ankh-Kara, a clever boy indeed. What, exactly, do you know of my hand?”
“Just what every citizen of Menu-Kash knows, your Majesty – you were wading in the River Ise, presenting an offering to Pademak, when a crocodile sprang from beneath the surface of the water and attacked. You killed the crocodile, but suffered severe and disfiguring injuries to your right hand.”
The Shekhem rose from his golden throne. Akhu bowed his head in reverence.
“Stand up, son,” the Shekhem commanded.
Akhu rose to his feet. The Shekhem stared into Akhu’s eyes. “What I tell you now never leaves this room. Understand?”
Yes, your Majesty,” Akhu replied.
“The story of my hand is a...fabrication,” the Shekhem began. “The truth is – I heard my father speak, in whispers, of a powerful sorcerer who once ruled Menu-Kash. It was said that this sorcerer had been kissed upon the right hand by the Goddess Ise, herself and thereafter, the sorcerer-king could see the past and future.”
“I have heard the legends, your Majesty,” Akhu said.
“Yes, but only Shekhem know that sorcerer’s identity. There have been twelve sorcerer-kings, but all of our powers pale in comparison to the third.”
“Sa-Seti,” Akhu said.
“Indeed. It was his hand that Ise kissed. It was his hand that held the key to the powers of precognition and post cognition. And it was his tomb that I raided for that hand over thirty years ago.”
“But what does that have to do with your hand, your Majesty?”
The Shekhem paced back and forth, his bare feet making slapping sounds on the cool marble with each step. “The ritual to claim Sa-Seti’s hand as my own required a sacrifice. I sawed off Sa-Seti’s hand and placed it in a calabash...”
The Shekhem returned to his throne and flopped down in the huge chair. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead as he continued to speak.
“Then, I...I severed my own hand and placed it atop Sa-Seti’s. Suddenly, the world went black. When I awakened, I was at home in my bedchamber. I felt no different, but when I looked beneath the covers to peek at my stump, I found this...”
The Shekhem snatched the glove from his hand. Akhu stared at it in disbelief. The Shekhem’s hand was withered and the digits were twig-like and twisted, ending in long, cracked, yellowish-pink nails. At the center of the leathery palm was a large, fully developed, alive and alert human eye. The eye’s piercing greenness both fascinated and disgusted Akhu.
“With the hand of Sa-Seti, I can indeed see the past and the future, but only of others; not of myself or my bloodline,” Shekhem Tehuti whispered.
“To have your daughter returned to you alive, you must sever that accursed hand and return it to its rightful owner, your Majesty,” Akhu said. “I am a skilled surgeon. I can...”
“I’m sorry,” The Shekhem said, interrupting him. “I...I don’t know if I can do that.”
“You don’t know, your Majesty?” Akhu said, lowering his gaze to hide his disgust for this man, who had just proven to be a thief, a liar and a coward.
“Look, Akhu,” the Shekhem sighed. “I love Ta-Sut with all my heart – she is my firstborn and heir to the throne – but the many outweigh the one. With insight from the hand of Sa-Seti, I have brought Menu-Kash unimaginable wealth and glory and I have kept this great land of ours safe. And – one day soon – I will heal the festering wound carved into this world by Pademak and restore peace to all of Ki-Khanga.”
Akhu knelt in salute. “If you speak it, it is so, your Majesty.”
The Shekhem slipped the crimson glove back over Seti’s mummified hand. “Leave me now, Akhu. I must devise another plan to rescue my beloved daughter from the clutches of that monster.”
Akhu sprang to his feet and – as custom dictated – walked backward out of the Shekhem’s throne room.
****
A cool breeze sent a chill down Akhu’s spine, awakening him. He sat up on the couch in his litter, stretched his sinewy arms and then peeked over the back of the couch at the top of Fusii’s head. The steel plates of her barding glowed a soft red as the armor reflected the tint of the morning sky. Her trunk was raised high, set to deliver another blast of air.
“I’m up, sister; I’m up!” Akhu chuckled. “Why have you awakened me?”
A soft, whistling sound made Akhu snap his head toward Gahs. Amat stood in her litter, pointing toward something in the distance. Akhu followed Amat’s finger. A towering obelisk loomed in the distance – the tomb of Sa-Seti.
“Strange...the tomb is surrounded by some sort of black liquid that ebbs and flows like an ocean tide.”
“That is no liquid, my Neb,” Amat replied. “Take a closer look.”
Akhu pulled a small, bronze telescope from a pouch on his belt. He raised it to his eye and what he saw made him gasp.
“Beetles! Beetles the size of a man’s hand!”
“Hundreds of thousands of them, my Neb,” Amat sighed. “Perhaps, millions.”
“Prepare yourselves!” Akhu shouted as he pulled the lever on the arm of his couch.
Amat pulled her lever and the litter bridge snapped into place.
Akhu snatched a large tarpaulin from under his couch and dragged it to the center of the bridge as Amat set up an iron tripod.
The war elephants galloped forward as Akhu and Amat continued to work, busily sliding tubes, gears and large canisters – all from the tarp – into place. Gahs let loose a powerful roar, which shook the ground beneath him. Akhu looked up from his work. The beetles had taken flight and a dark, clicking cloud closed upon the litter bridge.
“I’ll finish assembling Ra’s Rain,” Akhu shouted. “Fuel the Horns of Sekhmet and the Steamsword!”
Amat was a blur, grabbing a large calabash from her litter and emptying its contents into vents in the helmets of the elephants’ barding.
Akhu hoisted Ra’s Rain onto his shoulder then tossed the long, iron barrel of the weapon onto the tripod, fitting holes bored into the barrel’s bottom onto the tripod’s hooks. The massive weapon locked into place.
A shadow darkened the litter bridge.
“The creatures are upon us, my Neb!” Amat yelled.
“I suggest you work a little faster, then!” Akhu replied as he screwed a tube into the spigot of a steel barrel that sat over a roaring flame.
The sulfurous stench of feces assaulted Akhu’s nostrils. He turned his gaze skyward. The clicking, black cloud of beetles was descending upon the litter. Akhu snatched back the canopy and stood behind the canopy of Ra’s Rain.
“Fusii...Gahs...now!”
The twin war elephants raised their armored trunks skyward. A column of fire erupted from the nozzles connected to the barding covering each elephant’s eight foot long proboscis.
The Horns of Sekhmet proved effective as the flames engulfed the beetles, roasting hundreds of them and injuring hundreds more. The dead beetles – and their living kindred fell to the earth, where Gahs and Fusii set about crushing the creatures under foot. Amat tossed the Steamsword to Akhu with one hand as she pulled a large, wheeled crate with the other. Amat pulled the crate, which was filled with fist-sized, steel balls, next to Ra’s Rain.
On the ground, the beetles crawled together with military-like precision, forming a hundred or so patches of blackness upon the grass. Each group of beetles then began to fuse together, writhing and clicking as their bodies became one. After a few moments, a hundred large, chitinous black balls lay upon the field of battle.
The clicking ceased. The balls were still.
Akhu brought his telescope to his eye and studied the balls intensely. “Gahs, please, do us the honors.”
Gahs nodded and then raised his right foreleg. He slammed his foot down, beating a small crater into the grass. The force of the powerful stomp sent a shockwave across the battlefield, sending the beetle-balls bouncing upward. The balls fell back to the earth and then...no sound...no movement.
“Uh-huh,” Amat grunted as she rubbed her smooth scalp with the palm of her hand. “So...do we move on? Do we...wait for something to happen? Umm...”
“Perhaps the creatures are displaying a gesture of surrender. I guess we press on,” Akhu said with a shrug. “Brother...sister...please, takes us forward and step on those things as you go.”
Suddenly the balls started to vibrate violently and a loud clicking rose from each ball.
“Or...not,” Akhu sighed.
“I knew this was too easy!” Amat spat.
“One can only hope, Amat,” Akhu replied. “Load up Ra’s Rain; I’m going down for a closer look.”
Akhu drew the Steamsword and leapt to the ground. He landed with a dull thud. “Send down a line!”
Amat lowered a thin flexible tube to Akhu, who slid its open end over a spigot on the sword’s leather-wrapped, steel pommel.
“Give it some heat,” Akhu shouted.
Amat turned a lever on the heated barrel that sat on the litter-bridge. A few moments later, the Steamsword’s blade began to glow with a reddish tint, heated by the hair-thin copper veins running the length of the flat sides of the weapon.
“That’s enough,” Akhu said, pulling the tube from the sword’s pommel.
Amat turned off the heat and drew the line back up.
“Get ready!” Akhu shouted. “I am about to try something.”
Akhu leapt toward a beetle-ball, raising the Steamsword above his head. As he descended, Akhu brought the tip of the sword downward, thrusting it hilt-deep into the ball of fused insects. The ball burst into flames and the burning beetles separated with a loud series of clicks.
“I thought so,” Akhu shouted to his comrades. “The beetles are metamorphosing into something. We need to kill them now. Something tells me, we do not want to be here when the metamorphosis is complete!”
Suddenly, the beetle-balls unfolded in unison. Within seconds, standing before Akhu was a platoon of hulking humanoid creatures with large, wicked-looking mandibles, razor-sharp claws and spiked, black, armored exoskeletons.
“Too late, my Neb,” Amat shouted.
Akhu rolled his eyes. “You think?”
The beetle-warriors charged forward. Akhu and the elephants surged forward to meet them. Akhu slashed fiercely with the Steamsword, setting beetle-warriors ablaze with each strike, as Fusii and Gahs butted, gored and trampled the monsters with abandon.
Score after score of beetle-warriors fell under the onslaught of Akhu and his elephant companions.
The creatures suddenly broke engagement and retreated. Akhu reheated the Steamsword and Amat refueled the Horns of Sekhmet as they watched the beetle-warriors – about an acre away – fuse into each other once more, their carapaces softening and melting into one another until all the surviving beetles had formed one massive ball, which sat taller and wider than Fusii, Gahs and the litter-bridge.
“Oh, no!” Akhu exclaimed. “Brother...sisters...charge that thing! Destroy it!”
Akhu sprinted across the grass toward the monolithic ball. Fusii and Gahs galloped forward behind him, sending chunks of rent earth flying behind them.
Akhu closed within two yards of the massive ball and then exploded into the air, the Steamsword raised above his head. The ball unfolded into a spiked, black titan that towered over the party of stunned would-be liberators. The creature stood as tall as an elder eucalyptus tree and twice as wide as the great tree’s trunk. Akhu thrust his sword into the creature’s foot. The monstrosity snatched Akhu with a claw and lifted him skyward.
Akhu screamed in agony as the crushing pressure of the creature’s claw threatened to shatter his ribcage. He thrust the Steamsword into the giant beetle’s claw. The creature screamed a series of quick clicks and then released its grip, allowing Akhu to plummet toward the ground far below. Akhu stabbed the Steamsword through the monster’s armored torso and sank the weapon deep into the giant’s chest, halting his descent. The creature clicked loudly, reeling backward from the pain in its chest.
“I pray you’re ready, Amat!” Akhu shouted as he dangled from the hilt of the Steamsword.
“Ready, my Neb!” Amat replied.
Akhu twisted the hilt of the sword. Suddenly, a hissing sound rose from inside the monster’s chest. The creature roared in anguish and a cloud of steam billowed from its mouth.
“Now, Amat! Now!” Akhu shouted as he released the Steamsword’s hilt. Akhu’s fall toward the earth resumed.
Amat pulled the release lever on Ra’s Rain and a volley of fist-sized iron balls erupted from the weapon’s barrel. The balls flew into the monster’s mouth and a moment later, holes burst open in the colossus’ neck, chest and belly as the iron balls exploded, releasing hundreds of smaller, exploding balls. Akhu closed his eyes and whispered a quick prayer as the earth drew closer. Suddenly, a powerful force snatched him out of the air and held him aloft. He opened his eyes. Fusii was holding him in her massive trunk. Akhu leaned forward and kissed Fusii on the forehead.
“Thank you, big sister!”
Fusii gently lowered Akhu to the ground and patted the top of his head with her trunk.
Gahs raised his thick proboscis toward his sister. Fusii slapped the tip of Gahs’ trunk with her own in the elephantine equivalent of a “high-five”. Akhu perused his surroundings. The ground was littered with thousands of smoldering beetles.
“Good job, everyone!” He shouted as he jogged off. “Meet me at the tomb. If I have not come out within a half hour, use Ra’s Rain to raze Sa-Seti’s tomb to the ground!”
****
The interior of Sa-Seti’s tomb was, surprisingly, well-lit by some mystic form of illumination and the monument smelled pleasantly of frankincense and myrrh.
“Strange,” Akhu whispered.
“What did you expect,” a rich, baritone voice asked. “Something akin to a vampire’s rectum?”
Akhu whirled toward the voice. Sitting upon a golden stool was a beautiful, cinnamon-skinned woman with curly brown locks that fell past her shoulders.
“Ta-Sut!”
“Well...sort of,” the woman giggled.
“Sa-Seti.”
“You are a smart boy!”
Akhu pointed the Steamsword at Ta-Sut’s chest. “Release her, demon, or I will...”
“You’ll what?” Sa-Seti asked, interrupting him. “Murder the daughter of your Shekhem?” Ta-Sut’s mouth moved, however, it was Sa-Seti’s voice that continued to escape it.
“The Shekhem will not negotiate with demons! He will not relinquish the hand.” Akhu said.
“I knew he would not,” Sa-Seti replied. “That’s fine. I have no use for it anymore.”
“Then, why kidnap his daughter?”
“To lure you here.”
Akhu’s eyebrows furrowed. “Me? Why?”
“Because you are the only man in Menu-Kash with the wits to defy him.”
“I would never betray my Shekhem!” Akhu spat.
“Your Shekhem will, one day, crush this world beneath his boot-heel if he is not stopped!” Sa-Seti hissed.
“What?” Akhu asked, confused. “Why do you say such things?”
“Although my physical form is long gone, I still maintain much of my power,” Sa-Seti began. “Recently, I had a vision of Shekhem Tehuti Ur-Amun. He had three faces. Each face ordered a different army to rape, murder and pillage all the lands of Ki-Khanga. I knew, then, that he must be stopped.”
“And how do you know I will come against him? How do you know I won’t tell the Shekhem what you have told me?”
“Shekhem Tehuti needs my hand to see the future,” Sa-Seti replied. “I, myself, do not. Besides, your test against my scarab-warriors confirmed that you are more than capable.”
“And what of my uncle?” Akhu inquired. “He is dying because of your ‘test’.”
“He is dying because I cursed him with a rot spell when he fought his way into my tomb and nearly foiled my plans,” Sa-Seti replied. The antidote is the ichor of a white dove. He must fully drain a dove of its blood every three days for the rest of his life or his condition will worsen and he will die. If he does this, however, his health will stabilize rapidly.”
“And what of Ta-Sut?”
“She is free to return home with you,” Sa-Seti replied. She will not remember this conversation. Just tell her and everyone else that you destroyed me.”
Akhu nodded in reluctant agreement.
“I will leave you now,” Sa-Seti said. “Oh...one last thing...”
“Yes?”
“That apprentice of yours will make a fine wife and a great Shekhem one day.”
With that, Ta-Sut fell limp. Akhu caught her in his arms.
“Wait,” Akhu shouted. “Amat...wife? Shekhem?”
****
“The citizens of Menu-Kash salute you, Akhu Ankh-Kara!” Shekhem Tehuti said as he thrust a golden scepter toward Akhu, who knelt before him. General Mu – whose strength had seemingly returned – knelt beside him.
Akhu took the scepter in his hands, stood and raised the scepter high into the air. The sea of citizens cheered wildly for their hero, who defeated the most powerful sorcerer that ever lived and rescued the Shekhem’s daughter from the monster’s clutches. General Mu embraced his nephew, lifting him off his feet.
“I now promote you to the rank of Lieutenant, under the command of your uncle, the mighty General Mu!” The Shekhem shouted.
The crowd roared excitedly once more.
“Celebrate well tonight, gentlemen,” the Shekhem continued. “For tomorrow, you will have the privilege of retrieving a powerful relic for your Shekhem from the exotic lands to the west!”
The hairs stood on the back of Akhu’s neck and a chill clawed its way up his spine. “A relic, your Majesty?”
Shekhem Tehuti placed his crimson gloved right hand on Akhu’s shoulder. “You will find – and bring to me – the mask of Itu-Nusani Mujo – The Three-Faced One.”