Chapter 5:
Leaving the Pharaonic palace was a simple matter for the two, as it only involved a brisk walk through the palace’s side gate. To Sebamose, however, the cool, dry breeze that enveloped the palace that day reflected the inward calm and relief that he felt being liberated from the palace prison. It almost allowed him the luxury of forgetting his badly damaged wounds—that is until his nostrils picked up a familiar but unsavory scent. “What’s this?” Sebamose, “even the musty smell of the commoner’s den that seemed to have wafted itself up here.” That’s when his good will about living started to taper off. “Damn, I forgot,” he thought some more, “Those stupid refugees are there, invading my space. And now I have deal with this stupid priest with them!”
“Coming, Finder?” Djed cried out, as if on cue, startling Sebamose.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sebamose thought as he limped along, “Priests always think they’re the best thing to grace all of Akhat-Geb!” He tried to wrench off the leather band, but every time he tried to loosen it, it tightened even more. Finally, when his left hand became purple from the band’s strangle-like hold, Sebamose gave up, and let go of it; the band slacked off in response.
“I hope you’re not planning on prying that off, whelp,” Djed said, “It will not budge until you are done atoning for your crimes against Udjat and his heir, the Pharaoh.”
“You know, priest—”
“Ervad Abubakar, to you.” Djed interjected indignantly.
“Aright, Ervad, you realize that I have an actual name, right?” Sebamose said, grating his teeth a little.
“And you assume that I care?” Djed responded, seemingly bored.
“If I’m going to be your slave, the least you can do is know and use my name!”
“Alright, finder, what is it?”
“Sebamose,” The finder responded, “and don’t you forget it!”
“You know, for a ‘slave,’ you are quite mouthy,” The priest countered, “And mouthy slaves usually get beaten.”
“I think I’ve had enough of the beatings, thank you.” Sebamose said bitterly.
“Well then, dear Sebamose, let us drop the conversation and carry on.” Djed declared, “We have a Nomarch to question.”
With this final sentence, Djed marched on, as if his every step demanded respect. Sebamose followed behind, still limping from his generous beatings from a few days ago. As they wandered further away from the pharaonic palace, a slow, but gradual rise in refugees was made apparent as they began to litter the streets like yesterday’s trash. Some even clogged the alleys as if the alleys themselves were like dammed up riverbanks. When Djed and Sebamose got to the luxury market square, the two found the place unrecognizable; buried under mildew-ridden refugees the shopkeepers tried in vain to ward off the near-skeletal souls from snatching merchandise from the various stalls. The nobility present were the only ones doing anything about the situation, by having their servants and guards clear a path for them; this was accomplished by any means necessary and those refugees who did not move away willingly were cast aside through violent means, as was evident by the occasional bloodstain on the market’s flagstones. The Grand Obelisk itself was damn near unapproachable as there were refugees fighting over the little shade that the noonday sun offered.
“I could have sworn that the refugees weren’t polluting this part of the city,” Sebamose remarked, “why now?”
Djed could only sigh at the comment, and said, “In the three days that you were gone, a city from the south, Al-Mahata, has reported a catastrophic flooding due to an unusual level of heavy rain.”
“So that’s where these bums are coming from.” Sebamose replied, as he slapped away one of the refugees trying to get a coin or two from him. Djed, however, started uttering blessings on the downtrodden. The words uttered somehow seemed to lighten the hearts of even the most hopeless of the homeless souls; even Sebamose felt his plaster-coated heart somehow warm a little with delight at the hearing of those words, despite having no idea what they meant. Soon, the nearly dead and lying got up with youthful vigor, as if they were healed instantaneously. This soon attracted more and more refugees, until a whole tidal of them approached the priest, complete with a chaotic phalanx of needy hands demanding something anything to relieve them of this hell that they had endured.
After an hour, Sebamose grew impatient. “Helping these losers is great and all, but don’t we need to go find the Nomey and punish him?” The priest simply nodded, and spoke in a booming voice, pointing southeast, “Begone! Go into the temple of Weres, the caring hand of Udjat!” Immediately, the refugees began to move in an almost unnaturally orderly fashion. After a few moments, the once heavily clogged market square became less densely packed; and while the market square was far from its normally semi-uncrowded state, there was at least a path or two to trek across.
“Why in all of Akhat-Geb did you governmental types not do that in the first place?” Said an exasperated Sebamose.
“At first, when only the trading port of Setep was flooded, ‘we’ figured that it was only bad luck in the Akhet flooding season.” Djed replied as he started making his way to the Nomarch’s villa.
“So you thought you could dump these dregs on the commoner’s streets. In my favorite tavern!” Sebamose cried out agitated, “Typical!”
Djed continued, “Things got more troublesome when Djari followed Setep’s fate. While it has ports and a few lowland areas, most of the city is on top of a rather sizeable cliffside.”
“Let me guess, more came pouring in.” Sebamose muttered, bored at this point.
“Does this not disturb you?” Djed asked, confused at his new partner’s stance of all this, “Djari should not be susceptible to floods.”
“Well, that’s absolutely terrible. Boohoo.” Sebamose replied nonchalantly.
“You asked the question of why you the priests didn’t use the temples of Weres earlier, and now that I am explaining it, you are ignoring me.” Djed said, “I am sure that the palace prisons would be thrilled to have a permanent guest, that is, if you are going to be a liability, rather than an asset.”
“Alright, fine,” Sebamose cried, defeated, “Just cut the chatter and lead the way!” Djed could only manage to eke out a low, disapproving, “Hmmm,” as he obliged his partner’s not so polite request.
It only took two more blocks of villa space, before they were accosted by servant, whose moderately-charred tunic was but a hint to the unholy hell that his eyes bore witness upon. “PRAISE THE WATCHER!” the man shouted shrilly at the top of his lungs, charging like an angry hippo towards Djed. Finally, when the badly shaken man reached the two, he dropped on his knees, and after kissing the feet of the priest, cried, “Please, help me! My master’s house is aflame, and I cannot find any of the constabulary to help!”
“Tell me, who is your master, and where is his house?” Djed replied, without any needed thought.
The servant scrambled up his feet and pointed northward, where sure enough, a faint glint of smoke danced in the sky. “It’s the Nomarch! He’s still in there!”
Djed sprang into action. “Fetch me as much water as you can, servant, and meet me at the house. GO! Sebamose, follow me!” the priest barked as he broke into a sprint towards the source of the smoke. Sebamose had no choice but to follow his master into the impending fray.
As the two were nearing the villa, the distant wisps of smoke gradually became larger and thicker in its presence; it was a living pillar of destruction, demanding to consume everything that it could possibly reach. At last, when the two arrived at the Nomarch’s villa, the conflagration showed its truly devastating nature. The villa was buried underneath the colossal black pillar of smoke, which in turn was held up by angry orange and red tendrils of flame; there they danced as if they were celebrating a victory as vandals. The few servants that managed to escaped mostly intact tried their best to oust the fire with whatever they could grab. Alas, even the heaviest bucket of water seemed to do nothing more than to bounce of the flames. Sebamose could do nothing more than watch as the once pristine garden of the residence have its life being choked by the flame. Djed, however merely noted that the fire was not only surviving any attempts to quench it, but it was as if it were actively resisting it.
“You there,” Djed cried out to a nearby servant, startling him, “why is this fire still burning?”
“I…I am not sure,” the servant replied, badly shaken, “I keep pouring water, only to have it bounce back at my face!”
“Great,” Sebamose cried, watching the fire, “Was the house drenched in oil? How else could a fire resist water so well?”
Djed took a deep whiff of the flames. “There is no smell of oil…or alcohol burning for that matter…” he pondered for a moment, until it hit him like an arrow to a game animal, “there is sorcery involved!”
He pulled out a small stone and a small obsidian blade from the clothing on him. Using the blade, he scribed a glyph that looked like the Eye of Udjat with sun-like rays, and at the same time, he uttered a prayer in his priestly divine language. Like the blessings uttered at the market, Sebamose felt his heart lighten at the sound of it, as if a burden he didn’t know that he had was being lifted from him. Djed finally lifted the stone, and it seemed to shine over something between him and the flames burning the villa. It looked like a papyrus-thin barrier wall, blue in color, and semi-translucent in nature, as least in terms of what the stone revealed. “That explains a lot,” Sebamose lightly remarked, “You’d think that the perps would want the fire to spread.”
“Or maybe these criminals want the Nomarch dead.” replied Djed, as he took out a mace that was hanging at his side. He uttered a blessing upon it which in turn summoned a glowing exterior around it, as if it were encase in glass. He then took a mighty swing with it at the wall-like barrier before him.
The first blow made a small crack in the middle of the barrier. The second increased the size of the crack. Finally, after the third, it disintegrated, freeing the flames from their invisible prison. “GO!” Commanded Djed, and all the servants started to drench the flames in water. This time it worked; with no magic barrier, the flames hardly could stand against the quenching waves that the buckets held. Soon the pillar of smoke was heavily diluted with steam, coming from the mixture of flame and water. “Strange,” Sebamose thought, “I never had to deal with such magic walls while doing work.”
“Sebamose!” Djed called out, interrupting the finder’s pondering, “Get a bucket and start pouring!”
Sebamose started to grumble as he started to fight the fire like the lowlife grunts near him. It didn’t help that the priest wasn’t even touching the buckets. “How pompous do you have to be to not even bend at the waist to lend a hand?” Sebamose thought while he was working, taking note of the priest’s apparent laziness.
Just then the panicked servant that alerted the two arrived with a heavy bucket in hand, along with two constables carrying very large buckets of their own. Sebamose always hated the presence of the red and gold clad city watch; of all the difficulties that his “job” encountered, he found that they were the worst to deal with. Most of the time, he was able to avoid them by avoiding detection to begin with; after all, the target won’t call for help if the target doesn’t know that he’s in danger. If they ever got on his heels, however, things would get very dicey.
Facing the constabulary was never fun. First of all, they never seemed alone; when there was one, more were not far behind, and if they caught a single whiff of trouble, they were not slow to shout. This made taking them out one at a time difficult, and Sebamose would usually only do such a thing when there were no other options left. Secondly, though it was bad enough when he had to face them, either through fighting or running, it was worse when animals were involved. The vicious bark of a jackal was enough for him to bolt from whatever objective he was working on. Sure, he couldn’t outrun a jackal, but luckily for him, jackals couldn’t climb vertical surfaces. All it took was the proper application of climbing and a bit of imagination, and sure enough, he could leave the abominable creatures behind. The same could not be said when the constables decided to use their trained monkeys on him. Flight was only good for isolating to primate freak from his human masters, to which he would then have to get his hands dirty. While he certainly didn’t enjoy fighting off, or running away from the constables, at least he had options with them. The animals simply made it nightmarish.
Even when he was being leisurely with his time, and was not up to anything, the presence of any of the constabulary was sure to send chills down his spine. The worst of it was when he tried to suppress those emotions of panic and fear that he was going to be investigated, since it was like grappling and pinning an elephant to the ground. Now, however, he allowed himself to be calm; while he didn’t like the fact that he was subservient to a pompous priest, at least he won’t be any chance of being harassed by the constabulary. Even a crooked constable paid some form of respect to the priests, as angering the priesthood was a good way of guaranteeing a short life. Besides he had a flaming villa to tend to, though he was observant enough to notice Djed trying his best not to touch the any of the water that was being carried by him. “Careful with that!” The priest chided, “I cannot have you pouring it upon me, not even a drop!”
“What is he, allergic to water?” Sebamose thought, as the gears of his mind were starting to turn, “or perhaps he is deathly afraid of it. Interesting.”
Eventually the colossal tendrils of orange flame became little more than unhappy smoldering cinders all over the villa. It was a miracle that the building still had its second floor somewhat intact. Going inside, Djed, Sebamose and a few servants scanned the wreckage for survivors. The once peacefully serene garden had now been defiled by the flame, rendering its verdant plants as nothing more than grey husks of charcoal at best, and piles of wet, muddy, smoldering ash at worst.
Djed heard a hoarse moaning, followed by a violent cough, in the villa building proper and started to sprint, bashing the badly abused door down by sheer inertia alone. “Quickly!” he shouted as he dived deeper into the thick smoke-like fog that dominated the halls. Sebamose followed behind, fighting the urge to take a breath and thus cough all over the place. The stinging smoke didn’t help matters either.
Sebamose forced himself to crawl after a while, just so he could breathe what air was left untainted by the smoke. At last, losing himself in the murky limestone hall and the uncomfortably oven like environment, Sebamose finally shouted, “WHERE ARE YOU!”
“OVER HERE!” Cried a hoarse voice, reeking of desperation to live. Sebamose didn’t recognize it as the priest, but the voice did seem familiar. “HELP ME!” Cried the voice again. Sebamose moved ever closer to the source of the voice, through the winding corridors, only stopping to hear the echoes of the desperate soul growing louder and more eager for rescue.
Finally, he came across a familiar room, albeit with a level of redecoration that was kindly done by the fire. The table that once dominated the room was now being dominated by a burning cabinet that fell from the top, breaking two of the table legs in the process. It was rather impressive that the table itself was not completely burning; though charred from the cabinet, it was still below the cabinet, and would not be disturbed by the fire for at least a few moments. A good thing too, since the target of interest, the source of all the desperate cries for help lay trapped underneath the table, inches away from death. Sebamose recognized the face, once decorated with a cowl, now flung to the floor, with fiery holes slowly ebbing away at it. It was the Nomarch himself!
“Let me help you!” Cried Sebamose, almost uncharacteristically. “I guess it’s a bad time to ask for payment,” he thought. He tried to lift the side of the table that was still held up by the surviving legs; alas, three days of bodily neglect had weakened Sebamose by quite a lot. He felt especially drained, as the last of his energy, brought on by the joy of not being sentenced to death wore away. Sure he was bored by the priest’s antics, and annoyed at having to be his slave for a while, but the knowledge of not getting to die made the two above problems trivial in cost. He felt alright for a while, and even rather jubilant for a neglected body. Now, however, he felt the weight of starvation and thirst closing in around him and it began to pain him miserably. “PRIEST!” he shouted, feeling the sore dryness in his throat, “PRIEST!”
He began to succumb to his body slowly shutting down, when he heard the earth-shattering footsteps of a towering man. It was Djed the Priest, barreling in seemingly unaffected by the thick fog-like smoke. He took notice of the Nomarch, lying sandwiched between the table and the ground and same to Sebamose’s side. As he was helping the finder, he simply remarked, “That’s Ervad to you Sebamose.”
“Less talk. More lift!” Sebamose countered, as they slowly, but surely lifted the table, and the burning cabinet of the damaged Nomarch himself. It was obvious then that the Nomarch was helpless. A small puddle of blood lay to the side of him, right where several shards of wood were buried in his side. “Help me.” The Nomarch groaned, desperate for some relief in this newly made hell.
“You got it?” Sebamose asked the priest before shouldering off the table to him. Djed strained a little, but his muscles, know the weight of burdens before, refused to give in to the table’s load. “Quickly, finder.” Djed cried, as he felt the strain creep down his arms, and into his shoulders and slowly intensifying.
Even in his own withering body, Sebamose found the recovery of the Nomarch too important. Still, he found that dragging the body of the noble very difficult, both to do and to watch. At his healthiest, the sight of leaking fluids out the side of the man was not pleasant, and the smell was getting to him, too. Not just of the blood, but the ash, and even of what was destroyed, be it wood, food, or servant.
After what seemed like an eternity, Sebamose heard a deafening THUD! He looked to see that the priest had dropped the table; it was sign that the Nomarch was in the clear. With that in mind, Sebamose felt himself on the verge of collapse.
“Do not fail me yet, finder.” Djed cried as he followed Sebamose, “We must get him to safety, and heal him if we can.” He took out a piece of linen from one of his bags, and bound some of the Wooden-infested wounds that threatened to end the noble. He then picked up the Nomarch’s legs. “Grab his arms and let us go!”
Sebamose felt a stirring of courage to carry on; a strange, but exhilarating feeling that overwhelmed his weakened body with a new fervor to fight to the finish. The man may have weighed a little on the heavy side, thanks to his generous rich diet, but Sebamose’s newfound determination saw to the task at hand. After all, this was a step towards freedom.
It felt like an eternity getting out of the dying villa, but the feeling of the sunlight upon Sebamose’s back filled him with relief. He was at last done with carrying an almost corpse. The bright sunshine reflecting off of the lightly colored sands and walls nearly blinded him, however. The two had to carry on, as the courtyard was still hot with embers, desperate for a piece of dry fuel to consume. Eventually, they found a side of the tiled road to put the man down.
“Put him down gently,” Djed cried, “he may be alive, but we must not risk any chance of ruining that.” Sebamose reminded himself over and over in his mind, “Steel yourself!” However, with every echo of those two words, the pain of a neglected body exacerbated itself; it refused to be dominated by a mind wanting to carry on until he could safely collapse. Eventually, Sebamose felt the straining weight of the Normarch ease away gradually with his back meeting the tiles of the road. When the burden of the man’s weight left his hands, Sebamose fell to the road, right next to the Nomarch, all while Djed closely examined the dying body. The Ivory Finder found himself barely taking in any information, save for a loud booming of the priest’s voice. “Get me a priest of Weres!”
“Water.” Sebamose called out.
“Not now!” Djed called back, “I must focus.”
Sebamose rolled over and began to crawl to the nearest pair of legs he could find, all while crying out, “Water!” He then grabbed one of the nearest pairs of legs, and was kicked for his trouble by the man. Sebamose looked up to see a frightened servant. “Water.” Cried Sebamose, as he reached for the servant so frightened. “For Udjat’s sake, GET HIM SOME WATER!” Bellowed out Djed in frustration, trying his best to write charms upon the garments that the Normarch was bound in.
The servant quickly took a bucket, and finding a nearby well a score of ells away. The entire process was but a few moments in time, but to Sebamose, it was an eternity in limbo, a constant thirst that screamed for relief. The bucket was then dropped a few fingers away from his head, And Sebamose felt the splash of a few drops that managed to escape the bucket.
With great difficulty, Sebamose got himself up and drank deeply of the slightly impure water. To his neglected body, it tasted of pure nectar. This was no mere act of drinking; it was a divine experience, where his very soul, sucked dry by the bitter submission to death in the prison, was given new life. He was only stopped from sating his need for water by his need for air, and even then, little time passed between drinks of the water.
Sebamose drained the bucket with amazing speed, and in being revitalized, he managed to get back up. He was by no means ready or able to handle much, but at least he could carry on. He looked around to find a man running toward Djed and the dying Nomarch. He knew what this man was by the green and blue that adorned his tunic, and the leopard skin over it. It was a Priest of Weres, carrying bandages and various charms.
Sebamose decided to approach the two priests trying their best to patch up the noble, as if they were trying to plug holes in a dam determined to flood all in its destructive path. Sebamose hobbled over and examined the Nomarch closely; aside from the splinters, and even bigger pieces of wood and the ever-paling complexion of the man, he noticed something odd: His left earlobe still held that sea-shell shaped earring.
“Look!” Sebamose cried aloud, pointing at the strange feature.
“Not now, finder!” Djed hollered back, desperate to save the Nomarch. The tireless work of both Djed and the priest of Weres, however became fruitless, as the Nomarch began to breathe his final gusts of wheezing wind, whispering the chilling words, over and over, “Rain…eternal rain…Cult of…Eternal Rain…”
to Read Chapter 1, click here.
To be continued in Chapter 6 here