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Author's Note: Another very short story written in one morning during a flash of inspiration. This little story, written for my original heroine Sekhotep, owes its inspiration to iconography of Egyptian Pharaohs smiting their enemies with maces. In case you aren't familiar with ancient Egyptian native terms, "Kemet" means Egypt, "Waset" means the Upper Egyptian capital also known as Thebes or Luxor, and "Habiru" is another word for Hebrew or Israelite. Any feedback is appreciated!
Sekhotep strutted onto the limestone rostrum in Waset’s town square. All around her, firelight danced to the thundering drums on the huts’ mud-brick walls as the mass of townspeople brandished their torches. The perspiration on her dark brown skin glistened along with her gold jewelry even as the day’s heat faded into twilight’s chill. Not only did the wavering torches cast their warmth onto her, but Sekhotep knew that soon she would entertain her subjects in the least pleasant way she could.
Nonetheless she strode to the rostrum’s edge with a smile for the crowd. They all hooted her name while stamping their feet to add to the drums’ rhythm. She pulled out a stone mace caked with dried blood and raised it straight up to the moon. The weapon’s weight pushed down against her arm muscles as she held it.
The drums boomed together for one final time. On this the townspeople fell silent. “People of Waset, tonight you have the unique privilege of witnessing I, the Pharaoh of all Kemet, deliver my justice before your very eyes,” Sekhotep announced. “For once in your life, you shall see what I do to those who upset the balance between order and chaos!”
The audience parted to make way for a chariot carrying a naked man with wrists bound behind him. As the chariot advanced to the rostrum, people booed towards the captive while children chucked figs and dates at him. He snarled with pain after one fruit crashed into his cheekbone and drew blood. Sekhotep shut her eyes and winced.
The chariot’s driver shoved the captive off his vehicle onto the dirt road. The people jeered some more once he landed. A couple of soldiers dragged him by the arms onto the rostrum and dumped him beside Sekhotep. He tilted his head up to glare at the Pharaoh and bared his teeth like an angry hyena.
The captive’s light olive-brown skin, beaked nose, and wavy black beard represented his eastern race. Sekhotep stroked his tousled mane with one hand, noting its smoother texture compared to her own people’s frizzy hair. For some reason he did not squirm or jerk away from her touch as most prisoners would. It was unsettling that a rebel like him would show such indifference now.
“Here I present to you the infamous Meshulam, ringleader of the recent Habiru insurrection,” Sekhotep said to the crowd. “His insolence has endangered our empire’s stability and cost the lives of hundreds of men, women, and children, Kemetian and Habiru alike.”
The townspeople booed again. One woman shrieked out her wish that the Pharaoh bash out the captive’s brains.
“Of course Kemet cannot forgive such a blood-soaked trangression against her order,” Sekhotep continued. “Hereby I will punish him as all trangressors should be punished: with my forefathers’ mace!” She raised the weapon again and the crowd cheered.
“So, Meshulam of the Habiru, what do you have to say for yourself?” she asked.
Meshulam kept glaring at her, quaking with what could have either been dread or rage. Then he grinned and cackled.
“You say you will punish me,” he said. “In truth you will reward me. Once you smite me with your mace, I will have died in my fight to free my people from the infidel’s clutches. Elohim, our highest god, blesses those who die in his righteous name.”
“I do not know this Elohim,” Sekhotep said. “As far as I am concerned, you fight in the name of chaos and deserve no blessing.”
“We shall see what happens to me once I leave this world, but I do know this. As long as our race lives, as long as we have faith in Elohim’s mercy, we Habiru shall never rest. All you will do is inflame my people’s passion even more, and yet more blood shall stain the desert red. We shall not relent until we push all you black devils back into hell’s depths!” Meshulam spat at Sekhotep.
She let go of his hair and recoiled from him. The gaping citizens of Waset too stepped away from the rostrum. Men clung onto their wives who in turn hugged their children close by. All their eyes felled on Sekhotep, shining with tears. As Pharaoh of Kemet, she needed to maintain the balance between order or chaos, but it was even more important that she take care of her people. She would not let any more Kemetians bleed from the Habiru’s scimitars.
Besides, if the Habiru really believed that their god would bless their souls if they died in his name, the threat of death could never deter them. They needed a true punishment, not a blessing in the hereafter.
Sekhotep tossed the mace aside and pulled Meshulam up onto his feet. “You shall not die,” she said. “Kemet cannot afford a glorious death for you. What you deserve instead is a lifetime of suffering. I’ll send you to the gold mines where you shall toil until you break. Take him away!”
The soldiers returned to pull the captive back onto the chariot which rode away. The people of Waset cheered out their Pharaoh’s name again, shaking their torches in the air. The drums’ thunder returned to join their clamor.
Sekhotep turned her head up to look at the stars which dusted the night sky. Somewhere among them her father’s spirit twinkled back at her brighter than the rest.
She hoped she had honored his memory with her justice tonight.
Posts: 7100 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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I'm going to write a longer story, maybe even a novel, starring Sekhotep. You've already seen concept art for the heroine herself, now meet two of the other major characters!
Olufemi the Nok Mage I picture Olufemi as a supporting character with mystical powers (i.e. a healer or mage) who joins Sekhotep on some kind of quest across Africa. He is supposed to hail from the Nok culture of ancient West Africa, a culture that may have been ancestral to today's Nigerian Yoruba.
Ishtar the Babylonian Empress All right, now Sekhotep's story has a villain! Named after a Mesopotamian war goddess, Empress Ishtar of Babylonia is a power-hungry and racist young lady who covets Kemet's wealth and land, and she commands one of the most powerful military forces in the ancient Near East. Can Sekhotep stop her before she can conquer and enslave the Kemetian people?
(FOOTNOTE: Originally the villain was going to be an Indian pirate lady named Savitri, but I changed it to a Babylonian empress just because I felt a Babylonian would pose a greater threat to an Egyptian like Sekhotep than someone way the hell over in India.)
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And now a prop from the same novel: The Key to Heaven The Key to Heaven is a three-part wheel that, once fully assembled, allows the carrier to travel between the earthly realm of mortals and the heavenly realm of gods and ancestor spirits. However, all of the Key's thirds rest in African kingdoms very far away from each other. The upper left component is kept in Mali, the upper right in Kemet, and the bottom one in Zimbabwe.
In my story, the Kemetian Pharaoh Sekhotep must gather all three fragments of the Key so she can access the heavens and find the means to end the drought which plagues her country. But there is a greedy Babylonian Empress who will go out of her way to stop her...
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