“Advice such as I have received comes hard,” Ashtarta answered him, “but its very source is such that I cannot refuse it. We will not make war with the Khemites nor even defend our lands against them—not yet. The world is far and wide, and our little land is but a small part. We shall go out into the world and leave Kush behind—for now.”
“Leave Kush?” the chiefs cried as one man, their voices shocked.
“That was my word,” Ashtarta answered sorrowfully. “Leave Kush—leave her ravished, burned, destroyed—so that the Khemites shall not benefit at all from holding her. Not a single animal, neither beast nor bird, nothing that lives shall they take. Burn the very ground, that is my word.”
“And where shall we go, Queen?”
“That is a question you must ask of Khai,” she answered them. “Of the General Khai, for thus I now appoint him. General Khai Ibizin, of Kush. And his brother general, Manek Thotak, also newly-promoted. Khai, what have you to say of the sundering of the tribes of Kush?”
Khai was astonished. He stood up, opened his mouth, said nothing.
“Huh!” snarled a belligerent chief. “See the Khemite, elevated to a general, little more than a youth and gasping like a fish out of water—or a man out of his depth!”
“Oh?” Khai found his tongue. “And would you put six of your best men in a ring of pebbles with this fish, Dori Antoshin? I think not. Only let me recover from the shock of this honor bestowed upon me, and I shall say where the sundered tribes must go.”
He leaned his knuckles on the great table and frowned, then cautiously began. “Myself, I shall take fifty thousand men into Nubia. I have friends there and we shall fight Pharaoh’s soldiers together, black and white side-by-side. Also, there is a metal in the ground, and I shall make weapons of it. The General Manek Thotak: he shall take a similar body of men into Siwad, and he too shall fight Pharaoh, for Kush and Nubia are not the only lands to suffer Khasathut’s oppression. And in Siwad Manek will learn the arts of swamp-fighting, which will be useful when we return to Kush and attack Pharaoh in his house across the swamps. Moreover, the Siwadis are experts with fine and supple leathers, and there are things I desire to be made which Manek will bring back with him when that time comes.” He paused for a moment and gazed at Ashtarta and Imthra at the head of the table.
“Our Queen and her mage, they shall go to the west, to the land of the Hyrksos peoples. The remainder of our warriors will go with her; the women and children, too. Pharaoh will not follow there, for that would be to advance his borders too far, and even he will not have the men for that—not with the Nubians and Siwadis worrying his flanks. The Hyrksos are a friendly people, for they have no enemies surrounding them and do not need to fight. But they are great craftsmen, and they have built travois which do not drag along the ground but ride over it by use of wheels. The Queen shall take many craftsmen and horse-soldiers out of Kush with her, and also designs which I shall give her; so that when she returns to Kush she may ride in a chariot of war!”
“Huh!” another chief, Genduhr Shebbithon, snorted his contempt. “The whole plan is a madness, based on the visions of wizards and the dreams of a foreigner come to power in Kush. ‘Go here,’ Khai says, and ‘go there.’ And ‘do this,’ or ‘do that.’ And are we supposed to obey? I challenge his authority, his right to command tribes, his very origins! Who is this Khai, blue-eyed and fair-haired, who holds such sway in Kush? And for that matter, who are these seven mages? Wizards, mummers and charlatans, say I. And if they are men of powers, what dark spells have they placed on Melembrin’s daughter that now she would flee the Khemites? Now look—there sits Manek Thotak, also a general. What does he think of all this, who like his father before him has proved himself since a boy and loves Kush as a Kushite should?”
Manek immediately stood up. “I think we should all be quiet,” be said. “You, too. Genduhr Shebbithon, until all is explained.”
”But who will explain?” questioned yet another chief. “It is the right of the Candace to choose her generals as and when she will, but since when does Kush employ doubtful wizards for her guidance?”
“Now hush!” commanded Ashtarta, her face dark and angry. “You are all too eager to snap and snarl. And I will not suffer insults to our guests. Do you think I have not shared your doubts? Of course I have, who love Kush better than any of you. If it comes hard for you to give up your territories, how then for me, who must forsake a throne? Now I will say it one more time: Kush must be either sundered or overwhelmed, one or the other. You, Genduhr Shebbithon—you went raiding with The Fox in Khem. And now you compare me to my father and say I am bewitched! Well, and did not Melembrin himself—even The Fox—run from the Khemites when it suited his purpose to do so?”
“But, Candace—” two or three of the chiefs groaned in unison, for they knew she was hurt and would not have had it this way.
“Hush!” she cut them short, then bade the spokesman for the seven mages to rise. “You have heard me,” she told her warrior chiefs, “and certainly I have heard enough of you. Very well, now listen to the words of men wiser by far than all of you gathered here. And having listened, then tell me I am wrong to accept their advice. . . .”
III
MESSAGE OF THE MAGES
No man knew the true names of the seven mages, for to let them be known would be to lessen their powers considerably. A name is a target at which an enemy may direct harmful spells. Thus it was that the spokesman for the seven, the yellow mage, was known simply as the Mage of Mentalism, and thus he introduced himself before he commenced the following narrative:
“Many years ago,” he began, in a voice which, for all it was a whisper of dried leaves, still filled the hall, “Khasathut’s father, who was then Pharaoh, drew seven evil men into his house. They were necromancers, wizards, users of dire magics. We, too, are mages—wizards, if you so desire to call us—and indeed there is a necromancer among us. But our magics are white and those of the Pharaoh Thanop’et’s mages were black.
“He called them to him because he feared them, feared that they might work against him. Also, he was growing old and his son would need powerful allies when he claimed the throne. And Thanop’et set his Vizier over the Dark Heptad to keep them in their place, and they were put to work on mysteries for Pharaoh, who desired to be immortal. Thanop’et had acquired the skills of the Dark Heptad too late, however, and the task he had given them, to discover immortality for him, was too great. In time, he died and Khasathut came to the throne, last of his line, and later he appointed his own Vizier, Anulep, to council him and be his eyes and ears. And still the Dark Heptad worked their magics and saw to Pharaoh’s needs; and for him, as for his father, they continued to seek out the secrets of immortality.
“Now this was all well and good, for in keeping the Dark Heptad busy, Pharaoh prevented them from working their own abominations, which had been a scourge on Khem and all the lands around for years uncounted. My brothers and I—” he indicated the six seated mages, “had long known of them and had long abhorred their interference with the ordered laws of nature. Now, with the Dark Heptad all together under one roof, as it were, we were relieved of the watch we must keep over them and could relax our guard a little; for we had long kept a wary eye on these evil wizards to know how they fared in their infernal work and how, if ever they should come too close to the blackest mysteries of all, their vile industry might be checked.
“Also, we knew that they could never discover immortality for Khasathut, for there was only one way that this might be achieved—which would mean such a blasphemy as never before was seen. It would be the unleashing of forces which must eventually destroy Khem, all the lands around, the world, the sun and the moon, and all the stars in the sky. So that even if the Dark Heptad should discover this road, still they would never go that way, for that would mean universal insanity. Not even the Dark Heptad would dare that . . . or so we thought. . . .
“But now this Pharaoh Khasathut, he nears the end
of his span of years and his frustrations are many. His pyramid tomb towers in Asorbes, where in five more years it will be finished, but still Pharaoh is impatient with the work. His Dark Heptad promises him immortality, and gives him nothing. His Vizier plots and schemes and seeks more power, who already carries Pharaoh’s might in his hands; and this also worries the God-king sorely. So sorely indeed that he has made plans for Anulep to go with him into his tomb when the last day is come, which is not at all to the high priest’s liking. Also, Siwad and Nubia have risen up against Pharaoh, so that he must protect his borders; and he has learned that in Kush a certain man is grown up who has earned the respect of the Candace, who vows one day to return to Asorbes and destroy him who once destroyed all he held dear.
“And so Khasathut has made his plan, which is this:
“He will hold his borders with Nubia and Siwad, which will prove expensive in manpower but cheaper than waging outright war with the peoples of those lands. Next he will take Kush, against which he has a great grudge. To do this, his armies will surround the Gilf Kebir and slowly throttle the heartland. His warriors will strike from the hinterland, where no frowning walls of rock rise up to defy them. Thus will he drive the Kushites off the very edge of the Gilf Kebir, and those who might escape through clefts in the rock will find his soldiers waiting patiently in siege beneath the looming walls.
“Then, when Kush is fallen and its tribes overwhelmed, Pharaoh plans to split his army in two parts; one to strike south through Daraaf which is unprotected, and thus come into Nubia from the flank; the other to strike north, getting behind Siwad and crushing her from the rear. At the same time, he will mobilize all of Khem and reinforce his troops with fierce warriors out of Therae and Arabba. And these are the forces he will hurl against Nubia across the river, and against Siwad in the north. Thus will all be overwhelmed, and when it is done, Pharaoh will then rape the conquered lands of all precious things. . . .”
Here the yellow mage paused and the chief Dori Antoshin took the opportunity to ask: “And how do you mages know these things, who have been on your journeys for long and long?”
“How do you know when the sun shines?” the yellow mage countered.
Dori was taken aback. “Why!” he finally answered, “I see it with my eyes, feel it warm on my skin.”
“Just so,” nodded the yellow mage, “and we also have eyes that see and skin that feels, but you are just a man and we are the seven mages.” Again he paused, but this time there was no interruption.
“Now, if the tribes of Kush go their separate ways according to the directions of the General Khai Ibizin, then when the Khemites get here, they will waste much time in the taking of a land which is undefended, for they will ever be on the lookout for the fierce men who are known to dwell here. And when at last the land is taken, then they will discover that it cannot support them, where there is no meat and even the grass is burned to dust. Also, by the time half of the army gets here, Nubia and Siwad will be fighting back all along their borders, and so Pharaoh will send no more men into Kush. Short of supplies and needed elsewhere, the Khemish invaders of Kush will fall back into Khem to reinforce the forts and camps to north and south. Eventually, though seasons and years must pass before it comes to be, only small garrisons will be left in Kush, and the rest of Pharaoh’s armies will be fighting Nubia and Siwad across their borders.
“Ah! But the fighting will be bitter, with Siwad and Nubia bolstered up by men of Kush under the Generals Khai Ibizin and Manek Thotak. And soon Pharaoh will order all of his forces to those fronts to make an end of it. And now it will be the turn of Nubia and Siwad to hold the line. In Siwad, the Khemites will founder in mire; and to the south, where the Nile will be in flood, they will drown as they make the crossing into Nubia. Yes, and while this is happening the tribes of Kush will be reunited!
“Here in Kush, at this very spot, three-and-one-half years from today, the tribes shall come together, and now they will be armed with iron swords out of Nubia, leathers from Siwad, chariots from Hyrksos; and Khai shall bring an impi with him. Then shall Kush strike terror into the heart of Pharaoh, when the garrisons are overwhelmed and the war chariots thunder down out of Kush to strike the forts of the western marches and crush Khem even to the banks of the Nile and beyond. . . .
“Now this much we have seen, we who have access to dreams and visions, and we who hear the words of spirits of times gone and times still to come. But beyond this we cannot see, except to say that win or lose, Pharaoh will at the last cause his Dark Heptad to do that which will overwhelm the world. For he is mad and his madness waxes in him like moss on a damp stone, until it obscures the stone. So his madness grows, until Pharaoh will be no more and only the madness will remain.
“This is our concern, that an end be put to Pharaoh before he dooms the world, and to ensure this we pledge our services to the Candace Ashtarta of Kush. When the tribes of Kush separate and go their ways into the world, we also shall go where we may not be found, and when the tribes come together once more, we shall be here to work with them against Khem. . . .
“We have spoken.”
For a long moment, there was silence. Then the chief Genduhr Shebbithon said: “How may we know that any of this will come to pass? Give us a sign.”
“A sign?” the keen-eyed brown mage from Daraaf stood up. He was the Mage of Oneiromancy, an interpreter of dreams, and now his eyes were bright with sights unseen by the others. “Last night, I dreamed a rider would come from the Gilf Kebir,” he said. “And the rider would say that word was come out of Khem of the gathering of Pharaoh’s forces, that even now a great army marched on Kush.”
“Oh?” said Genduhr Shebbithon uncertainly, “and where is this messenger?”
The brown mage gazed at him and smiled until his keen eyes twinkled like stars. “That is your sign, chief,” he said, “for you spoke those very words in my dream last night. And I answered thus: ‘Let the messenger speak for himself!’ ”
“Majesty!” an usher burst in through the great doors. “A rider has come from the east with a message.”
Ashtarta smiled grimly at the suddenly wide eyes and stricken looks on the faces of her chiefs. “Send him in,” she commanded. “We know what his message will be—but I should like certain of my chiefs to hear it for themselves. . . .”
IV
PHARAOH’S FRENZY
It took all of five days for Ashtarta’s message to get out to the tribes, but after that, her instructions were followed to the letter. All goods and chattels were bundled up for the journey or else hidden away in inaccessible places; beasts were either herded together ready for the drive out of Kush, or slaughtered where they stood; and as the first cohorts of Khem arrived at the foot of the Gilf Kebir, so the tribes of Kush departed, as it were, “by the back door.”
After twelve weeks, when Pharaoh’s forces encircled the Gilf’s plateau-lands and got behind those frowning cliffs of near-impregnable rock, then it was discovered how sorely the departed Kushites had dealt with the land; when all about was seen the scorched earth and blackened houses, the choked wells and dams broken down so that streams ran to waste, the ravaged fields and stripped orchards. And when finally it dawned on the commanders of that expeditionary force that indeed the Kushites were fled, then they set up their camps, took stock of their meager supplies and sent word back to halt the advance of an even greater army which was clearly unnecessary and unsupportable.
At first Pharaoh greeted this news with a mad delight, for second only to a destroyed Kush was word of one in full flight or already utterly fled before his might; but as Nubia and Siwad began a new and savage offensive, his mood quickly turned to one of rage. And all came to pass as the seven mages had prophesied, with Pharaoh deploying the bulk of his men to north and south, intending to crush his resurgent neighbors in short order and so put an end to it. Here, however, he had reckoned without the advent of the Generals Khai Ibizin and Manek Thotak, without whose military skills and trained Kus
hite warriors it would have gone hard indeed for the Nubians and Siwadis. Also, the weather turned against Pharaoh and, in a deluge of completely unseasonable rain, the Nile became unnavigable, while the low-lying lands of Siwad turned into a vast and totally impassable morass.
Moreover, to the west of the Nile, the enemy’s forces commenced a series of sly guerrilla raids on Khem’s camps and forts, with parties of Nubians striking north through Daraaf and the Siwadis cutting south across Khem’s own savannahs. And though month piled upon month, still the weather did not break, so that soon Khasathut became convinced that it would rain forever. Only then, after almost a year of battle, did the Dark Heptad approach Pharaoh through Anulep the high priest, with their interpretation of events; and only then did he begin to understand something of the truth of things: that much of the blame for what was amiss could be laid at the feet of seven mages who were the equal in powers, if not the peers, of his own seven wizards.
Now Khasathut had known of the seven mages for as long as he could remember, and he had often sought to find them and bring them together to work for him as his father had done with the Dark Heptad. Soldiers had been sent out more than once into the lands surrounding Khem (with the exception of Kush and Nubia) to bring back the seven dead or alive, but the mysterious mages had seemed like smoke to the grasp of his troops. Here today and gone tomorrow, they were as shadows that everyone saw but none could trace, whose owners were more wraithlike than the shadows themselves. Moreover, the peoples of their home- or host-countries could not be made to assist Pharaoh in their discovery; for the seven were as holy men and protected, so that Khasathut had never been able to take them.
Which was why, on learning that the seven had a hand in the business of the war—particularly in respect of the foul weather—Pharaoh flew into an evil temper and sent out chosen men yet again into Daraaf, Syra, Arabba and Therae to seek them out. Time passed and with the second summer the weather seemed to relent a little, and the seekers after the mages, some of them at least, began to return. Of the party sent into Daraaf, however, Pharaoh heard never a word and suspected that it had met with fatal troubles. The Theraen and Arabban parties did return, shamefacedly and empty-handed, but at least they carried home confirmation that the seven mages were indeed all gathered on the side of Kush and working against Pharaoh, which was to strengthen the warning of the God-king’s Dark Heptad. As for that party sent into Syra: they had not stopped there, but carried on eastward and were never seen or heard of again. For them the unknown east had more to offer than a return to their increasingly war-torn homeland.