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Chapter 10 of Egyptian fantasy novel Ra's Warrior
Chapter 10
Men-Nefer
Frightened servants dodged the furor of the king as he forged upstairs. Cold beer sloshed onto his hand. Khufu’s intentions were past its intoxicating effects. He stormed into the harem. His rage benumbed him to any further insidious emotions that woman could elicit. With flared nostrils, Khufu seized the nape of the guard’s neck and squeezed while maneuvering the plumping man toward the door. “Get out!” After shoving the eunuch out, he turned and stared at the closest woman.
Big brown eyes veered away from his lustful stare. A solitary tear left a glistening trail down her cheek as her head lowered. She bent to one knee. “My Lord.”
“Slight, but you shall suffice.” Traces of humanity fled from him. Sharp fingernails dug into the thin wrist she offered.
She yelped.
He hauled her along until she latched onto the marble pillar and decried, “I am indentured to do as you request and shan’t dishonor my family, but I beg thee show mercy.”
Khufu’s compressed mouth and igneous stare conveyed his restrained wrath.
He released her and stepped aside. She walked toward his private bedchamber; Khufu ripped off a veil attached to her silver girdle when she passed. He sniffed the gauzy fabric. Lily.
Another woman wearing little more than underwear and luxuriant black hair lounged against a limestone statue of Hathor. “She does not know the ways of men like I, My Lord. Perhaps two women would be palatable entertainment for such royal tastes.” She fondled her exposed nipples and bit into her bottom lip.
Images of the golden haired wraith flashed in his mind. It was her flesh he craved. Saliva frothed under his tongue.
The feisty volunteer smiled when he snatched her gold belly-chain and tugged. Khufu thrust them both onto the bed and kicked the door shut.
#
Unsteady legs carried her; somehow, though, Andrea managed to preserve a calm exterior on the way through the halls. But once inside her palatial prison, confusion compounded with a sudden longing for family to breach composure’s wall. Confined tears burst forth from the dams of sorrow. The room, regardless of how comfortable it was, offered solitude without solace. Statues had stone ears and sealed lips. Andrea sat on the bed and smothered out the sounds of crying with a pillow. Her hunched body heaved and sweltered like a boat riding out a hurricane as each emotion crested the waves of her mind.
“Damn it!” She pummeled the wet pillow. “Why? Why me?” Someone knocked on the door and then opened it before she had a chance to wipe her face. Andrea yelled “what” without looking first.
Tehuti, wearing his white hair and human persona, stood in the doorway. “May I enter?”
“Oh, my apologies Master Tehuti I thought you were someone else.”
“I presume you are referring to Khufu.”
There was gentleness to his slightly curved lips that reminded Andrea of her father, which made confiding in Tehuti easier. “It was not my intention to hurt him. Rushing into anything with uncertainties is bad for any woman.”
“Youth and wisdom are often a volatile mixture.” Tehuti took Andrea’s hand. The energy flowing into her from this eternal being’s presence was worse than hitting a brick wall at 80 miles per hour. Memories became snapshots against the backdrop of dulling room. Blood splattered the tan stalks of barley growing along the black riverbank. The sickening thumps of falling bodies abounded; white crimson stained feathers drifted down.
Andrea’s stomach tightened as cries of the injured pierced her senses. “Stop it! Why are you doing this to me?”
Peacefulness flooded her with the next memory’s seamless invasion. Two sleek ibis danced above a fledgling Nile. Diving and climbing to the world’s roof, their ritualistic declaration of love bound their souls. Wingtips touched as the ibises pirouetted. Down and down they spiraled, separating when they were barely above the fields. The lovers swooped around to meet again and the landing was timed so that they came face to face when their feet touched ground; they kissed. Andrea scrunched her facial muscles tight and when she finally looked up, Tehuti’s unblinking eyes came into focus. “Like you, I have experienced the doubt caused by the heart’s avoidance of such confusing emotions. But love is different. From the moment it touches you, it uplifts your very essence until you can deny it no longer. Do you love Khufu?”
She wasn’t ready to answer that question. “I care about him, yes, but ours is a relationship doomed before it can even begin. Why does he not understand?”
“Perhaps it is you who lacks understanding. His love is the sandstorm that spans passion’s desert. It ceases not; growing ever stronger as it consumes him. Khufu feels betrayed by his heart and puissant anger guides his actions.”
With a shaky index finger she pushed down the loftier folds in the bedcover. “I cannot allow it.” The truth, buried as it was, should have been self-evident.
“Confront your fears, Andrea. Seek out that which lies within and it shall liberate you.” Tehuti patted her hand. Andrea felt a slight twinge of discomfort when he cocked his head. A sequence of physical morphs was his body’s natural response to some unexpected atmospheric ripple that she could not quite perceive. Changing into his hybrid state, he simply said, “I am needed elsewhere,” before shimmering and fading from the room.
One thing was certain; she would be spending the evening without the king’s company. Taking her logbook with her, she went into the bathroom, knocked on the servant’s entrance, and asked the slender man who answered to prepare a bath. Soon various attendants invaded. They brought in painted jars with scented cleansers, towels, and baskets of flower petals, which they tossed on the water’s surface. The older man who had opened the door was obviously in charge; he hurried the others and scolded them when they were slow acting. Andrea asked him to have dinner sent to the room later. His inadvertent stare was noticed and he should have been scolded for his human desires, but Andrea felt pity for him instead. She knew what the man had suffered through before being appointed such a position. Only eunuch’s guarded harems and high-society women, which meant that the poor soul had been castrated. Unfortunately this barbaric ritual was commonplace. “Why bother saving mankind? It will never change the cruelty we dole out to our fellow man,” she said in English so no one could understand.
Once the room emptied, she undressed and slipped into the tub. Satiny rays from a dusking sun doused the room in tranquility. Andrea’s not-so-logical side assumed command. Tense muscles relaxed as the steamy water rose above the shoulders. After putting a towel beneath her head, she closed her eyes. But images of Khufu were ceaseless phantoms that refused to let the denial of love gain supremacy over what could one day be. The luster in his eyes when they smiled at her was as clear to her now as it had been every other time.
Light, provided by four burning braziers and a hundred candles, was plentiful. Andrea picked up the logbook and started with the entries made soon after arriving here. Every entry referred to him in some fashion: things he told her, the gentle way he kissed her hand, how happy she felt when he was around, and there was even an entry with an in-depth description of how dashing he looked on the night of the feast. All her newfound problems stemmed from her affections toward the king. Finally, she realized that she had become an expert at avoiding the greatest emotion, idyllic love.
#
The empty drug-laced goblet clanked on the floor. While gathering up the supplies she had hidden in the room weeks earlier, she admired his sprawling naked form. Adding a sleeping potion to the harem’s water jugs had guaranteed her an uninterrupted evening. She had successfully intoxicated him, which enabled her to further ignite his sadistic behavior. The woman unfortunate enough to have received the brunt of his aggression cowered in the corner; blood dripped from her deflowered body. Sex excited Kepi, but lurid sex . . . Ah, euphoria. Her face twisted with devilish satisfaction. She and the king partook of the young woman’s innocence, albeit given freely. Now it was time to complete the task her Master had given. It would ensure her place in the new order of the foreseeable future and shed her from the skins of the retched life imposed upon a harem girl.
Picking up a small table, she placed it next to the bed. Kepi went around the bed and, with glistening eyes, glared down at the woman. One punishing kick to the stomach silenced any screams; Kepi laughed when the woman slumped. Toned muscles flexed as she hefted the unconscious girl onto the bed next to Khufu. The daunting task of placing the bodies in precise positions was undertaken with gleeful reverence. Kepi then searched for his dagger, which was buried underneath the pile of shredded clothes at the foot of the bed.
Standing over the delicate framed female, Kepi palmed the knife and poised it above the unmoving sacrifice. “May the Lords of Darkness accept this ba as a pledge of my loyalty.” With the force of her entire body behind it, the dagger plunged into supple flesh. The sacrifice’s eyes popped open as her ribs were pried apart with unnatural strength. Red bubbled from her mouth. Kepi pulled free a still beating heart from the gaping cavity. Kepi raised the organ over her head and let the salty yet sweet life-nectar drip into her eager mouth before wringing some of the fluid into the basalt chalice. After adding the required ingredients to the potion, she stirred it with the king’s blade while reciting the spell.
The drugs she had slipped into Khufu’s last drink made him completely susceptible to suggestion. Her sexual appetite so great she rubbed him until he became erect. “Awaken, my crimson king,” she said as she mounted him again. Her drink sloshed from the chalice; splashes of red stained the white sheets.
“Yes, love.” He spoke with a heavy slur and his eyes were mere slits.
Their coupling bodies rocked, keeping him docile. Kepi’s abundant black locks shielded Khufu from what lie beside him. “You must be parched. Here, drink.” Diabolical eyes twinkled. Without changing her rhythmic movements, she held the cup to his lips and tilted it. He questioned nothing. “Give free passage to the Lords of Darkness as you drink from the Cup of Death,” she said as he consumed it greedily. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. And so it was done.
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