The Age of Ra Read online

  Steven, on the other hand, shunned further education and joined the navy.

  He joined the navy because there was a war on and the armed services needed able bodies and the Parent Hegemony needed defending. Or so he said.

  But it was obvious that he did it because it was the exact opposite of what everyone expected him to do and wished him to do.

  Six months later, following the Battle of the Aegean, Steven was listed as missing in action.

  Just as David would be. Probably was already.

  He sat on a rocky outcrop overlooking a valley that was wide and brown, shot with pink by the rays of the setting sun. A bird wheeled above, wings outstretched, riding the evening thermals. At first David had taken it for a Saqqara Bird and had felt a faint stab of hope. Even now, some priest back in Cyprus was coming round from a fever-trance and informing David's superiors that he had found him. The army hadn't written him off after all. The government might have ordered Petra to be bombed but the Second Paratroop Regiment had refused to give up on its men.

  But the bird was in fact a real bird, a vulture, and it was here for only one reason.

  David felt empty. There was nothing left inside him. He was a shell, a brittle man-shaped crust enclosing a vast, exhausted void. He had gone as far as he was able to. There was no more distance to go.

  He knew it. The vulture knew it too.

  The Horusite ba lance lay across his lap. He was trying to summon up his last dregs of strength in order to pick up the weapon and place it against his head.

  Gibbs had been right. There was no other way out. Death was inevitable. But at least, like this, you had some control over it. You could decide the when and the where and the snap-of-the-fingers how.

  The life beyond awaited. In Iaru, the Field of Reeds, David would plough, sow, and harvest for all eternity. He would toil happily, with Steven beside him. There would be no more turmoil and dispute between the two of them. They would be as they were always meant to be, brothers who loved one another and forgave one another.

  David tried to anoint himself from his phial but his hands were weak; his fingers couldn't grip the top to unscrew it. He gave up, thinking that simply saying the Prayer would suffice. But he couldn't manage that either. His lips were rigid, too cracked and flaked for speech, his throat too dry.

  An unceremonised death, then. His ka would still make its way to Iaru, but perhaps not as swiftly as he'd have liked. There would be a time in limbo, before he at last found his way to the land of the dead.

  He checked the ba meter on the lance. After Gibbs had used it, there was now just enough charge left for a single shot.

  It would do.

  The lance seemed to weigh as much as a bar of solid iron. David braced it beneath his chin and groped for the trigger.

  There was light, golden light, and a spray of blood.

  David lay on his back, feeling the blood cooling and congealing on his skin.

  He could hear a babble of voices and knew they belonged to the souls of the dead in the Field of Reeds. The sound grew louder as his ka leapt free of his body.

  Leapt free into the purpling sky.

  Into the fading sun.

  5. Ra

  Dawn, as always, brings new hope.

  As Ra steps from Mandet, the night-time Barque, to Mesektet, the Solar Barque, he feels a surge of reinvigoration. He stretches out his aching spine and works his stiff joints, and the cold of the night just gone by eases from his muscles, and the pains and woes of age recede. He does not feel young again - he never will - but neither does he feel so old any more.

  Aker, at the helm of Mandet, bids him farewell. ''Till this evening, my lord,'' he says with a toss of his leonine mane of hair.

  Ra smiles. ''Till then.''

  The Solar Barque sets sail. The voyage of day begins again.

  Aboard the gleaming golden boat are Ra's regular diurnal companions. Maat, at the helm, gives her father a curt nod. Her expression is seldom anything less than grave, although Ra knows his daughter to have a wry sense of humour, which she reveals in unguarded moments. Her doglike companion Ammut squats at her heels, tongue lolling.

  Meanwhile sly-eyed Bast is seated amidships on a divan, her upper body vertical, her legs stretched out sideways. Her shape is a languorous L. She purrs softly as Ra approaches and her eyelids close and open in greeting. He loves this daughter too. He loves her most of any of his family, for Bast is beautiful and untalkative and has never caused him any grief. He strokes her head and the cat-goddess preens pleasurably.

  Proceeding to the bows, Ra finds Set, who is limbering up for the trials ahead. Set flexes his powerful physique, muscles snaking beneath his startlingly pale skin. He glances round at his great-great-uncle. He puffs a lock of red hair out of his eyes. He returns to his warm-up exercises.

  The Solar Barque, the Boat of a Million Years, leaves the eastern gate of heaven, passing between the twin sycamores of turquoise. The river of day runs calm and smooth. The god of the primeval waters, Nun, can be felt beneath the keel, wafting the barque gently on its way.

  Then, ahead, a disturbance on the surface. A patch of boiling turbidity from which, all at once, arises the terrible serpent Apophis. It rears from the water, towering above the barque, seething with evil. Its coils thrash and churn. It would swallow the boat. It would destroy the sun and snuff out all life.

  But Set is here. Set is ready. His punishment, his penance, is to battle Apophis twice a day, every day. He launches himself at the creature, springing high to grapple with it. Arms around its neck, he strains every sinew to throttle it. Apophis hisses like a whirlwind and snaps its head from side to side in the hope of dislodging its assailant. Set clings on, digging his fingers into its sinuously glittering scales. He claws the serpent's throat open with his bare hands. Blood gushes out in cataracts. Apophis howls and plunges into the river, disappearing into the depths. Pink foam swirls on red water, and on earth the sky is stained with these colours.

  Set swims back to the Solar Barque and his great-great-uncle reaches down to helps him aboard. Their gazes meet. Set's eyes are bright red, even brighter and redder than the blood he has just spilled. Ra's eyes are mismatched. The right is a lambent amber yellow, the left a pale pearly grey. This is a distinctive coloration he shares with many of his descendants - Osiris, Isis, Hathor, Horus, the ones he trusts most, the ones he is inclined to favour.

  When Set looks into his great-great-uncle's eyes, it is a tangible reminder of his outcast status. He knows he will never be well loved by the senior god of the pantheon. He knows he will always be apart and different.

  Ra knows it too, and is saddened. The first saddening of today. The first of many.

  ''Well fought,'' says Ra.

  Set shrugs. ''How much longer must this farce continue? How many more times do I have to slay that thing before you decide I've made amends?''

  ''For what you did to your brother? Your sentence is not nearly served, Set.''

  The two gods go their separate ways, and the barque sails on.

  Soon a group of elder gods appear on deck: Sobek, Khnum, Ptah, Neith. Of these, only Neith has any vigour and vitality. She marches forward to hail her son.

  ''Ra,'' she says, her bows, arrows, and shield clanking. ''How goes it?''

  ''You are strong in the world, mother,'' says Ra. ''So am I.''

  ''As long as those great-great-nephews and nieces of yours bicker, I will prosper,'' says the goddess of war. Her jaw has a mannish jut to it. Her hair is tightly braided and tied back so that there is no chance it will ever distract her by flapping in her face.

  ''Their bickering has a purpose beyond simple rivalry,'' Ra replies. ''They must be worshipped, and worship requires sacrifice. The people of the world need to prove themselves worthy of the divine blessings they are given. The surrender of their mortal lives is that proof, and conflict supplies a convenient means of their dying.'' Ra says these words, but he isn't sure he believes them. Not any more.

&nb
sp; ''Am I complaining?'' Neith's laughter rattles her armaments. ''Of course not. I am flushed with power, unlike those pale shadows back there whom I have to spend most of my time with.''

  The other three elder gods shuffle their feet and look ashamed. They are ghosts of their former selves, sallow and emaciated. It is hard to imagine them ever having received the adoration of humans, ever imbibing the blood of slaughtered beasts and glowing with the flames of the ritual pyres lit in their names. Their ba is all but non-existent. They linger feebly, clinging to the lees of their lives, with little to say for themselves and less to do.

  And Ra feels a tiny pang, his second saddening of the day.

  For, looking at these four, he knows that even gods may fade.

  Even gods may die.

  Now come his nephew and niece, Shu of the air and Tefnut of the rain, to pay their respects. Shu is an absent-minded sort. He would never remember to visit the barque if Tefnut did not drive him to do so.

  These married siblings are joined by their children, Geb of the earth and Nut of the sky, also married.

  All four of them, the First Family, make their obeisance to Ra. ''As the children and grandchildren of Atum,'' they say, ''from whose swirling chaos the universe was born, we salute you, O Sun God, Ruler of the Ennead.''

  ''Big Chief Blazing Shorts,'' adds coarse-mannered Geb. His sister-wife digs an elbow in his ribs.

  Ra laughs off the jibe, but inwardly laments Geb's insolence.

  Thus, bit by bit, is his morning's happiness whittled.

  There are other visitors to the Solar Barque during the course of the day. Minor members of the pantheon, lesser gods, a few demons. Ra receives them all civilly, as a ruler must. They are offered hospitality - sweetmeats and wine. There is idle chat. These duties bore Ra and tire him, but he tries not to let it show.

  Thoth, his vizier, his dear old friend, he is always glad to see. The two of them repair to the stern, where only Maat may overhear their conversation.

  ''Tell me something to lift my mood,'' Ra asks of Thoth.

  ''You are not dead, Ra,'' comes the reply. ''However dull and dim your life becomes, oblivion is worse. Never forget that.''

  ''Ha!'' Ra is almost amused. ''I feel a chill, though. Why is that?''

  ''We are nearing the river's end,'' says Thoth. ''The day is dwindling. Perhaps it is just the cool of the oncoming evening.''

  ''No. No, I think not. It is a chill inside. A prickling in my heart. A cold presentiment. I fear, Thoth. I fear for the future, and don't know why.''

  Thoth beetles his hoary eyebrows. ''We are old, you and I, Ra. Time grows short for us. The future is a strange monster. The less there is of it, the more it frightens.''

  ''Is that all this is? An intimation of death?''

  ''Only you can know for certain, old friend.''

  Thoth leaves Ra pondering.

  Finally, late in the day, the squabbling siblings come. They are the inheritors, the ones to whom the earth was given whole and who have carved it up between them, parcelling it into separate dominions.

  Osiris and Isis arrive hand in hand, giddy as newly-weds for all that they have been married for eons. Nephthys is with them, and only reluctantly leaves Isis's side to join Set. She much prefers the company of her sister to that of her brother-husband, who greets her coldly as she approaches and who places an arm around her shoulders much as a farmer might place a yoke on an ox's neck. Nephthys simpers in his embrace like a dutiful wife but in her eyes there is a yearning to be elsewhere.

  Set and Nephthys's son, Anubis, puts in an appearance, scowling and brooding. Set nods to him. Anubis nods stiffly back, then moves off to stand at a distance from his parents, aloof, arms crossed. The Jackal-Headed One leads a solitary life. His dominion is death, and death is a lonely affair.

  Following him comes his cousin and half-brother Horus, who winks at Ra with his one good eye, the left eye being covered by a patch. Horus has his four children in tow - Hapi, Imset, Duamutef and Kebechsenef - an unruly brood of godlings who scamper and brawl around the deck, paying little heed to their elders with whom they frequently and sometimes violently collide.

  Set snaps at Horus, ''Can't you keep your damn offspring under control?''

  Horus glares back at him. There's enough venom in his one eye to fill two. ''Want me to rip those balls of yours off again? I'll happily do it, you ginger freak. Come on.'' He clenches his hand at crotch height, gripping an imaginary pair of testicles. ''Just give me an excuse.''

  ''Try it and I'll gouge your other eye out,'' Set retorts.

  ''Loser.''

  ''Moron.''

  ''Liar.''

  ''Fool.''

  None of them stays long. It's a courtesy call, a formality. Ra is the ancient relative they come to see once a day more out of duty than love. They stay a brief while, exchanging pleasantries, managing to mask the divisions between them. They seem ill at ease, however. Perhaps it is the effort of maintaining an illusion of cordiality.

  Or perhaps, Ra thinks sombrely, they sense what I sense, that my days are numbered, and it troubles them. Or else, which is worse, it doesn't trouble them.

  They are soon gone, at any rate. Only Set remains, and that is because he has the second of his daily tasks to fulfil.

  Apophis rises once more. The giant serpent, now healed, explodes from the river, and as ever Set leaps to wrestle with it. As ever, he is victorious. Apophis dies again, and for a time the river is all froth and crimson tumult.

  And so the voyage is over. The Solar Barque reaches the western gate of heaven and moors there. Ra is by now weighed down with cares. A gloom has well and truly descended on him. He has nothing to look forward to but a night in the netherworld, Mandet drifting along a black river through caverns of utter darkness, the air glacially still, and only Aker for company, a stoic, uncommunicative presence, peering intently ahead at all times, his golden eyes like lamps in a tomb. No sleep, no rest, just a period of deathlike isolation, to counterbalance the brightness and gregariousness of day.

  Ra steps off Mesektet and onto Mandet, heavily.

  Dusk, as always, brings sorrow.

  6. Caravan

  The camels spat and grumbled, and the children laughed harshly and thrashed them all the harder with their switches. In a long line the beasts of burden picked their way across the desert, with a straggle of goats bleating behind. Their young drivers showed them little mercy.

  Occasionally, during a rest stop, one of the fouler-tempered camels might take its revenge and bite. The children seemed to find this funny too. The bitten boy - it was always a boy - would giggle, rub the spot where the camel had sunk its teeth in, then turn on the offending animal and thrash it soundly. It was as if pain, giving it and receiving it, was all a game to them.

  The adults of the Bedouin goum were no less hardy. They thought nothing of sitting ten, twelve hours in the saddle, remaining perfectly upright despite the swaying, arrhythmic lurch of the camels' motion. Their faces were imperturbable, their skin as finely folded as parchment maps, their eyes full of distance. During travel only the men spoke, and when they did, which was not often, it was to bark an order at the children or make some dusty, sardonic comment to which only the other men were expected to respond.

  The women never spoke. At least, not in David's presence, although at night he heard voices coming from their tents and the sound was soft and tinkling, as refreshing as a drink of cool spring water.

  This family tribe of Bedouin weren't just nomads, they were also merchants. Three of the camels did not carry people but had strongboxes hanging from their sides, two apiece. Whatever was inside the padlocked steel containers, which were stamped with hieroglyphs, was heavy and clinked metallically. These camels were the first to be unloaded each evening, and the strongboxes were kept overnight in a special tent guarded by men with rifles.

  Jewellery? Weapons? Gold coins? Valuable merchandise of some sort, to be traded at the caravan's final destination.

  Da
vid himself was valuable merchandise too. The ropes binding him told him this, as did the fact that he was never left on his own for a moment. When he needed to relieve himself he was always escorted by at least one armed guard, usually two, and when he was up in the saddle his wrists were secured tightly to the pommel so that he couldn't slide off even by accident. He was fed and he was given water, just enough to hold body and ka together, and he knew that the Bedouin wouldn't be keeping him alive if they didn't feel he was worth something to them. It would be a waste of precious provisions otherwise.

  His memory was hazy, the recent past a blur, but little by little he pieced together what had happened.

  The ba lance had slipped from his grasp at the crucial moment and the shot had gone astray. There had been a victim, but it was not him. Blood had been shed, but not his. The Bedouin caravan had been approaching just as he made his suicide attempt. He had been too preoccupied to hear, and he had, by some drastic fluke, killed not himself but the caravan's lead camel.

  The sheikh of the tribe had finally managed, after several attempts, to explain this sorry mishap to him. David knew a smattering of Arabic, but these Bedouin used an unfamiliar dialect, one which had cross-pollinated with some glottal sub-Saharan language. With gesture and dumbshow the sheikh showed him a camel keeling over, and brandished the spent lance to make the point that this was the murder weapon.

  So David had deprived them of a camel, and to make up for it they were going to have to sell him somehow. They seemed to have a buyer in mind.

  ''Osiris!'' The sheikh indicated the embroidered emblem which made up part of David's battledress, a pair of phoenix wings enfolding his chest in a feathery embrace. Then the sheikh waved an arm in a southerly direction. ''Nephthys! Khartoum!''