Unholy Empire: Chronicles of the Host, Vol 2: Chronicles of the Host, Book 2 (29 page)

He walked over to the statue of Amen-Ra, tucked away in the holy shrine, and prayed a mocking prayer like the priest had just done. “Grant me your powers, O Amen-Ra, that I may overcome my enemies!”

All of the angels laughed. Lucifer turned to them.

“You asked me, Berenius, what was disturbing me. It is the idea of these Hebrew mongrels having such hope.”

Berenius looked to the others to see if they understood whatever it was that Lucifer had said.

“Don’t you see?” Lucifer said in exasperation. “The time for the prophecy is at hand. The Lord always makes good on his word. At least up until now. It has been over four hundred years, and everything within me tells me that the one who will lead them out of Egypt will soon be born…perhaps he is already born.”

The room fell silent for a few moments as each demon imagined an uncomfortable destiny closing in just a little bit more.

“Well, what’s done cannot be undone,” said Pellecus, breaking the spell. “If he is to be born, he shall be born. If he lives now, he lives.”

“Of course it can be undone,” said Lucifer, almost with contempt. “Anything humans do can be undone. It’s just a matter of how. Look at this great temple and this statue. How long will it stand before another king who worships another god comes and destroys it; or a great earthquake devours it; or time destroys it as it does all things on earth? If I have learned anything on this miserable planet, it is that things can be undone!”

“Then let us deal with these creatures quickly!” a new voice sounded within the chamber.

“Ah, Kara,” said Lucifer. “Welcome to your temple.”

“As Amen-Ra I am served by many, but as Kara I serve only you, my lord,” said Kara with a slight bow of the head.

“Well put,” said Pellecus. “From exalted god to servile lackey in so short a time.”

Kara scowled at Pellecus but was too concerned with other matters to respond.

“My lord, I have just returned from the temple at Memphis. The talk among the priests is of nothing but the Hebrew deliverer. Even Seti is disturbed by the evil portents.”

“Of course, Pharaoh Seti is disturbed,” said Lucifer. “He is surrounded by fools. What with all the talk of a deliverer in Goshen and his wise men in a panic every time they see a falling star! I wonder that Egypt has risen to such greatness in the world.”

“Then it’s true,” said Kara, with a nervous expression. “The time of the deliverer
is
approaching.” Kara suddenly burst out in anguish. “My lord! I am the prince of this great land. If the gods of Egypt lose face they shall be overturned…these creatures might even find solace in the God of Heaven! Even Seti…”

“Never fear, Kara,” said Lucifer soothingly. “Your gods will be preserved. Seti shall maintain order And we will deal with the deliverer.”

“Then you have a plan?” asked one of the angels with a mixture of hope and dread. “You know how to deal with this coming one?”

Lucifer smiled and looked at Kara. “Amen-Ra, I believe is a bringer of dreams, is he not? Does he not speak to the pharaoh and the high priest of Egypt in dreams and visions?”

“Yes, of course,” said Kara, beginning to understand. “He does indeed.”

Kara stepped away from the group and stood in front of the statue of Amen-Ra. Before their eyes, Kara transformed himself into the form of the god, Amen-Ra, complete with the same headdress and shape as the image. Pellecus nodded as if he agreed with the plan, not having even heard it. The others watched in astonishment.

“No, my brother, in answer to your question, I don’t have a plan to deal with the deliverer,” Lucifer said.

As he finished speaking, Kara waved his hand before the face of the stone idol. The eyes of the image of Amen-Ra flared up in a fiery dance. Kara grinned in delight.

“But I believe Amen-Ra has!”

“Where are you taking us?” asked Serus.

Serus and several other angels stood among the many mud huts outside the new treasure city of Raamses in Goshen. They watched the people moving about, many scarred and disfigured from the whips and abuse of the foremen at the brick pits. Serus found himself becoming incensed at what he saw.

“I don’t understand why the Most High permits his people to remain in such bondage,” he finally spoke up.

“I didn’t bring you here to voice your opinion on the condition of the Hebrews,” said Romus, one of Michael’s chief aides. “I have brought you here to watch a particular family among these poor humans.”

As they continued through the dirty street, Romus stopped. He indicated a woman who looked like most of the other women in the small community. She was careworn, and looked older than she really was. The recent years of slavery had taken a heavy toll on the men and women of Goshen. How far they had fallen from the favor they had found with the pharaohs of Joseph’s days!

“That is Jochebed, the Levite,” said Romus. “I want you to watch over her, but not to go near her.” He looked around as if making sure there were no unfriendly ears about.

“Not go near her?” asked a puzzled Serus. “How are we to…”

“Because the enemy would like to destroy her,” continued Romus. He pulled the angels in and spoke discreetly. “In just a few days she will give birth to the one whom the Lord will use to take his people out of Egypt. She is the mother of the deliverer of Israel! Therefore I wish you to protect her from a distance and not draw attention to her until the child is born.”

“So the time of the deliverance of these people is at hand!” said Serus excitedly. The other angels in the group began chattering excitedly. Romus hushed them.

“But the deliverance is at hand,” continued Serus in a more subdued tone. “So then my task is to watch over this family and keep them from mortal harm. And should anyone, be that person Hebrew or Egyptian, attempt to harm her before her time, am I authorized to remove that threat?”

The angels looked at each other. They knew, of course, that Serus was clarifying whether or not they might take a human life—something that a holy angel could never do without proper sanction.

“Yes,” said Romus. “All of you are so authorized.”

They watched as the woman Jochebed disappeared down the street, carrying a small basket with a meager supply of bread and vegetables of some sort. Romus watched her until she was out of sight and then looked at the group.

“But it is not a human threat that concerns me,” he said somberly.

“O gods of Egypt, look down with favor upon thy servant, Seti, son of the morning and evening stars, guardian of the sanctuary of Amen-Ra, and of upper and lower Egypt, great and unconquerable king!”

Seti looked down from his great throne as the last of the petitioners filed out of his presence. Upon their leaving, he took off the heavily bejeweled headdress that he wore when he received nobles and made judgments on behalf of matters personal to the royal household.

He stood up and was immediately attended by several royal pages. He brushed them away.

“Leave me,” he said. Seti walked off the polished stone dais on which stood his throne and to the royal chamber, the king’s private suite of rooms. Before he entered, he said to one of the omnipresent palace pageboys, “Summon Anipur to my chambers.”

Seti looked about his rooms, recently installed and built onto the great house begun by previous pharaohs. The palace at Malkata in Thebes was one of the many royal residences that the pharaoh lived in throughout the year, but it was his favorite of all. He could feel the presence of the great kings who came before him in this place and it gave him comfort. He gazed at a relief that depicted a map of the great Nile River, and began to think of the heritage and the responsibility that had befallen him.

Seti’s predecessors had precariously maintained Egypt’s great world empire, which at one time stretched from Nubia in the south to portions of the Euphrates River north of Syria. The pharaohs had consolidated their political influence by increasing the power of the priests in Egypt and had erected great cultic centers of worship, chiefly at Thebes. These kings also re-established the prestige of the traditional gods of Egypt, who had fallen under difficult times under the nomadic Hyksos invaders.

The Hyksos had finally been expelled from their northern capitol of Avaris by Amosis some 250 years before Seti, and his successors immediately began not only the traditional gods of Egypt—headed by Osiris, Horus, and Isis, with temples built in their honor—but also the relatively newer gods of Amen-Ra at Karnak in Thebes, Ptah of Memphis, and Harkhti of Heliopolis.

With so great a heritage, Seti had much to live up to. Someday he would have a son and heir who would carry on the glorious tradition of this great dynasty. It was the thought of passing on a great legacy that made him think once more on that which had been plaguing his mind lately—the talk of rebellion in Goshen.

“Yes, great one, bid may I enter,” came a voice in the antechamber.

“Yes, yes, come in, come in,” said Seti, who was pouring himself some wine. “Have some of this Minoan wine. Delicious really.”

“Thank you, great one,” said Anipur. As you wish.”

Pharaoh handed a cup to his chief aide and watched him drink. He then drank some from his own goblet. Seti indicated that they should both be seated.

“How is your wine?” Seti asked.

“Splendid, divinity,” said Anipur, who had never been comfortable with the casual relationship that Seti often brought him into. After all, Seti was a god incarnate!

“Yes, those Cretans certainly know their wines,” commented Seti. “Undisciplined lot, though. And quite licentious. What they need is a bit of Egyptian virtue!”

Anipur nodded in agreement.

“Alright, alright, I’ll out with it,” said Seti. The pharaoh set his glass down and went over to a cupboard that contained all of his maps. He selected a scroll and brought it over to the low table at which they were seated. It was a map of the delta region of the Nile, principally of Goshen and the way to Canaan along the King’s Highway, which ran through Canaan to points north and east.

He began with a recounting of the events leading to the current situation in Goshen with the Hebrew slaves. Anipur, of course, had heard all this before, and was quite knowledgeable in Egyptian history, but he listened with rapt attention. He hated the Hebrews with a passion and was jealous of the land that they occupied. Anything he could do to cause Seti to deal swiftly and brutally with Israel advanced his personal goal of becoming a governor over the rich province of Goshen.

Seti continued painting an increasingly menacing picture: how the Hyksos had come in as part of a general migration and ultimately became an invasion by foreign peoples; how they had driven the legitimate pharaoh south and established a new dynasty that was sympathetic to the Israelites; how under Joseph’s rule and subsequent Hyksos pharaohs the Hebrews prospered; how eventually the great leader Amosis had overthrown the Hyksos and established a new dynasty in Egypt; how succeeding pharaohs were weary of the threat of open borders peopled by foreigners; and how Amenophis I enslaved the Hebrews and set them to work rebuilding the glory Egypt had once known.

Anipur listened as Seti concluded his retelling of recent events in Egyptian history. Seti looked at his most trusted advisor, cupping the wine goblet in his hands.

“And now, the Hebrews talk of a delivering spirit—one who will lead them out of Egypt! They have hope in such a man. A man who would destroy the hopes for my yet-to-be-born son to have a glorious reign. I am already getting older. Soon it will be my successor’s time. I want him to inherit a glorious Egypt—not one emptied of its commerce. Who will build the cities of my son if the Hebrew slaves ever rebel?”

Anipur averted his eyes from the pharaoh and began talking. “Great one, there has always been talk of a deliverer. Every pharaoh since Ahmose has dealt with this legend. Have no fear, son of Amen-Ra. The Hebrews cling to the hope of a god who has deserted them. Perhaps in Canaan their god has power. But in Egypt, Amen-Ra has stilled the voice of the god of Joseph.”

Seti shook his head.

“No, Anipur,” said Seti, who was trembling. He looked around as if embarrassed at what he was about to disclose. He then lowered his voice and continued.