River god - Smith Wilbur (чтение книг .TXT) 📗

  QUEEN LOSTRIS CALLED HER WAR COUNCIL when the news of the Hyksos crossing reached us in the Palace of Memnon. She addressed her first question to Tanus.

  'Now that he is across the river, can you check the barbarian?' 'I can slow him down, perhaps,' he replied frankly. 'We have learned a great deal about him. We can wait for him behind walls of stone, or behind barriers of the sharp staves that Taita has equipped us with. But Salitis need not give battle. His chariots are so fast that he can swing around our positions as he did at Asyut. No, I cannot stop him.'

  Queen Lostris looked at me. 'Taita, what about your chariots? Can they not give battle to the Hyksos?'

  'Your Majesty, I have forty chariots that I can send in to meet him. He has three hundred. My chariots are swifter than those of Salitis, but my men cannot match his in skill and training. There is also the matter of the wheels. I have not perfected them. Salitis will overwhelm and destroy us very easily. If I am given the time and the material, I can build new and better chariots with wheels that do not burst, but I cannot replace the horses. We dare not risk the horses. They are our only hope for eventual victory.'

  While we thus debated, another messenger arrived, this time from the south. He had fled to us on the current and the wind, so his news was only a day old. Tanus ordered him into the council chamber, and the messenger fell to his knees before Queen Lostris.

  'Speak, fellow,' Tanus invited him. 'What do you have to tell us?'

  The messenger stuttered in fear of his life, 'Divine Majesty, while our fleet was busy at Asyut, the barbarian made another crossing at Esna. They swam the horses over as they did before, but this time there were none of our galleys ready to turn back their boats. Two Hyksos regiments are across. Their horses are in the traces and they are coming on a cloud of dust, swiftly as the flight of the swallow. They will be here in three days.'

  None of us spoke until Tanus had sent the man away with orders that he be fed and cared for. The messenger, who had expected to be killed, kissed Queen Lostris' sandals.

  When we were alone, Tanus said softly, 'Salitis has four regiments across the river. Six hundred chariots. It is over.'

  'No!' my mistress's voice shook with the force of her denial. "The gods cannot desert this very Egypt now. Our civilization cannot perish. We have too much to give to the world.'

  'I can fight on, of course,' Tanus agreed. 'But in the end it will all be the same. We cannot prevail against their chariots.'

  My mistress turned back to me. 'Taita, I have not asked you before, because I know how dearly it costs you. But I must ask you now before I make the final decision. I ask you to work the Mazes of Ammon-Ra for me. I must know what the gods require of us.'

  I bowed my head in acquiescence, and whispered, 'I will fetch my chest.'

  THE SITE THAT I CHOSE FOR THE DIVINATION was the inner sanctuary of the shrine to Horus in the half-completed Palace of Memnon. The shrine had not yet been dedicated to the god, and his image had not yet been set up, but I was certain that Horus had already cast his benevolent influence over the building.

  My mistress sat before me with Tanus at her side, and watched in fascination as I drank the witches' potion to open the eyes of my soul, my Ka, the little bird-like creature that lives in the heart of every one of us, and which is our alter ego.

  I laid the ivory Mazes before them and asked both Queen Lostris and Tanus to stroke and handle them, to endow them with their spirit and the spirit of the nation that they represented, this very Egypt. As I watched them divide the stacks of ivory counters, I felt the drug in my blood grow stronger, and the beat of my heart slowed as the little death crept over me.

  I took up the two remaining Mazes from the last stack, and I held them to my breast. They began to grow hot against my skin, and my instinct was to draw back from the darkness that I felt coming over me. Instead, I surrendered to it and let it carry me away.

  I heard my mistress's voice, as though from a great distance. 'What will become of the double crown? How can we resist the barbarian?'

  The visions began to form before my eyes, and I was carried up into the days that were still to come, and I saw events that had not yet come to pass.

  The morning sunlight was streaming through the aperture in the roof and striking the altar of Horus, when at last I returned from the far journey of the Mazes. I was shaken and nauseated with the effect of the hallucinatory drug, giddy and trembling with the memories of the strange sights that I had seen.

  My mistress and Tanus had stayed with me during the long night. Their anxious faces were the first things that I saw on my return, but they were still so distorted and wavering that I thought they were part of the vision.

  'Taita, are you all right? Speak to us. Tell us what you saw.' My mistress was concerned. She could not hide the guilt she felt at having forced me to enter the Mazes of Ammon-Ra once more.

  "There was a serpent.' My voice still echoed strangely in my own ears, as though I stood apart. 'A great green serpent that crawled through the desert.'

  I saw the puzzled expression on their faces, but I had not yet considered the meaning of it all myself, so I could give them no guidance.

  'I am thirsty,' I whispered. 'My throat is dry and my tongue like a stone covered with moss.'

  Tanus fetched a jar of wine and poured it into the bowl for me, and I drank greedily.

  Tell us of the serpent,' my mistress demanded, as soon as I lowered the bowl.

  'There was no end to its sinuous body, and it shimmered green in the sunlight. It crawled through a strange land, in which lived tall naked men and strange and wonderful beasts.'

  'Could you see the head or the tail of the serpent?' my mistress asked, and I shook my head.

  'Where were you? Where did you stand?' she insisted. I had forgotten how keenly she enjoyed my visions, and what pleasure she took in interpreting them.

  'I was riding upon the back of the serpent,' I answered. 'But I was not alone.'

  'Who was with you?'

  'You were at my side, mistress, and Memnon with you. Tanus was on my other hand, and the serpent carried us all.'

  "The Nile! The serpent was the river,' she cried triumphantly. 'You foresaw voyage that we were making upon the river.'

  'Which way?' Tanus demanded. He was as rapt as she was. 'Which way did the river run?'

  I made an effort to recall every detail. 'I saw the sun rise on my left hand.'

  'South!' he cried.

  'Into Africa,' said my mistress.

  'At last I saw the heads of the serpent ahead of us. The body of the serpent was bifurcated, and on each branch was a head.'

  'Does the Nile have two branches?' my mistress wondered aloud. 'Or is there some deeper meaning to the vision?'

  'Let us hear the rest of what Taita has to tell us,' Tanus stopped her speculation. 'Continue, old friend.'

  'Then I saw the goddess,' I went on. 'She sat upon a high mountain. Both the heads of the serpent worshipped her.'

  My mistress could not restrain herself. 'Which of the goddesses did you see? Oh, tell me quickly who it was.'

  'She had the bearded head of a man but the breasts and the pudenda of a woman. From her vagina she spurted out two great streams of water into the open mouths of the double-headed serpent.'

  'It is the goddess Hapi, the river god,' Queen Lostris whispered. 'She generates the river within herself, and pours it out to flow through the world.'

  'What else did the vision show you?' Tanus demanded.

  "The goddess smiled at us, and her face shone with love and benevolence. She spoke in a voice'that was the sound of the wind and the sea. The sound of thunder on the peaks of far-away mountains.'