Desert Rhapsody - Chapter 51

Chapter 51

Sometimes Jiang Yuan found it strange herself. Why had she taken it for granted that they and Huosen had to fight to the death, making such a huge mess in ancient Egypt four thousand years ago? They were all poor souls stranded here. It was not as if sincere cooperation to return to where they belonged was impossible. They could have worked together, protected the jewel together, escorted it back to Memphis together, and set it back into the statue’s chest together, instead of each side inciting an army and lining up for battle beneath the walls of Memphis.

But the moment she looked at Abal beside her, that thought vanished. Abal was no kind soul. Jiang Yuan could figure it out with her toes: he would absolutely kill Huosen, and make sure there was nowhere left to bury him. Huosen surely knew that too. The moment they landed in ancient Egypt, even if their circumstances were the same, they had already become enemies who could not coexist. Jiang Yuan had to choose a side.

They rumbled toward the pyramids, as if driving toward the finish line. Everything would be decided here. After daybreak, it would be the fifth day, the last chance for Abal to gamble with his own life and win a sliver of opportunity to strike back. Jiang Yuan had never had a chance like this before, standing shoulder to shoulder with him and watching him scheme and command. Abal said, “What a pity. I should have let you take part in more of my business before.”

Jiang Yuan took a moment to process that and realized he meant his bandit business. Her face remained expressionless. “No, thank you.”

He laughed beside her, and what made Jiang Yuan dazed was that for one fleeting instant, his laughter suddenly scattered into the wind. Her hand went empty. All at once, she was holding nothing but air.

Then Abal asked her in the night wind, “What’s wrong?”

He seemed not to have noticed anything strange, nor her odd reaction. She was silent for a moment, then said, “Nothing. My side just jolted a little.”

The soldiers around the pyramids were not positioned in rings around each individual pyramid. Supposedly, the nearby area was like that, with several large pyramids selected for especially tight guarding. But there were too many pyramids and statues. The Vizier had no choice but to allocate his manpower and focus his defenses on a limited number of key points, while the remaining men radiated outward from a central position in an interconnected network. In short, the scouts were very close to Memphis. While they were still far from the pyramids, another dragon of fire swam toward them from the distance. Chariots rumbled as the Vizier of Memphis pierced through the night.

The people on both sides stopped and faced off. The nobles on Jiang Yuan’s side did not have to fear the Vizier that much, even if he was a great royal noble and the minister who ruled Lower Egypt on behalf of the Queen Mother and the pharaoh. It was not as if there was no royal blood on their side. One after another, they began speaking out, accusing the Vizier of disrupting Memphis and the order of their lives.

This city had been the ancient capital of several former Egyptian dynasties. The powerful families who remained here were even more deeply rooted than those in Thebes. When they cursed the Vizier, they did it with more satisfaction than when they cursed their own sons. “Incompetent fool!” “You have betrayed the Queen Mother and the pharaoh’s trust!” “Look at what you have turned Memphis into! You should lay down the duties of Vizier, go to Thebes, and beg the Queen Mother for forgiveness!” “Go to the temple of Memphis and beg Amun-Ra and the High Priest for forgiveness!”

The High Priest waited a while, and at last someone blurted out the matter of the Devil. The Vizier said, “I have reliable evidence that the Devil is nearby, and we are in the middle of encircling it! All of this is for the prosperity of Egypt, and to prevent the gods from growing angry, to prevent Memphis from falling into the Devil’s claws! The Queen Mother authorized me to do this!”

“Nonsense!” The person who said this sounded as if he really was related to the Vizier by blood, one of his relatives, and an elder at that. Only, his head was shaven and he wore a white linen robe; he was a priest, a natural opponent. “In my opinion, you are the one bewitched by the Devil. We should seize you and hand you over to the Queen Mother, so she can put you properly on trial beneath Amun-Ra’s gaze and see whether you are truly innocent!”

Even under the wavering torchlight, the Vizier’s expression looked ugly enough to see clearly. Both sides shouted over each other, and conflict was about to break out at any moment. Jiang Yuan felt the hem of her clothing tugged. Amid the chaos, she quietly slipped down from the chariot. In the age of chariots, stealing a mount was somewhat difficult. Jiang Yuan and Abal had originally planned to get closer to the pyramids before getting out and walking. They had not expected to be stopped this soon. It counted as another case of plans failing to keep pace with change.

With Abal leading the way, they squeezed out of the crowd and moved toward the rear at an angle. The Vizier roared, “In the name of Ra and the pharaoh, I swear I have never consorted with the Devil! The secret order I received came from the Daughter of Ra, the supreme Queen Mother Hatshepsut, and no one else! Which of you dares claim that she is the Devil? Every one of you ought to be dragged to the water’s edge and flayed, then fed to crocodiles and jackals!”

The gathered crowd burst into uproar. The High Priest’s voice asked, “Then why are there rumors of a Devil? Everyone says you talk to someone no one can see!”

The Vizier replied, “I followed the Queen Mother’s command to satisfy it. To make it lower its guard, so we could seize its accomplices. That is why I am guarding this place tonight. Because after it failed to bewitch the Queen Mother in Thebes, it vanished into thin air during the ceremony of offering to the gods, then finally came to Memphis, preparing to seize its chance and rise again-”

Abal suddenly stopped and said, “Not good.”

His pace immediately quickened. Jiang Yuan understood what he meant. At that moment, the hair on both of their bodies stood on end, and they realized with absolute clarity that they had fallen into Hatshepsut’s trap.

They had originally been moving against the crowd, but now they changed direction and returned to the very front. An invisible man knocking people aside would only leave them unable to react in time, so Jiang Yuan shouldered them out of the way and followed. They began to turn their walk into a run, their movements briefly concealed by the torches. The people around them were confused for a moment, unsure what had happened. Then, as Abal ran to the side of a chariot and yanked the driver down, countless people-perhaps only those at the front-watched with their own eyes as a human body let out a horrified scream, flipped into the air under the firelight as if by itself, and rolled to the ground.

Dead silence fell.
Vizier had only just reached the second half of his sentence. “It is among you!”

The chariot reins were lifted into the air by invisible hands. It was a horrifying sight no one would ever forget. The next instant, part of the reins was cut away, then nimbly looped around one horse’s mouth and yanked back. With a shrill neigh, the horse reared up on its hind legs. Jiang Yuan rushed to the horses’ side and stretched out her hand to grab for it, while another rein spun through the air and dropped around the other horse. At the same time, she felt a hand sweep down from above and haul her bodily onto the chariot.

Her hand screamed in pain again, as if it were about to dislocate, and she ended up sprawled across the chariot facedown. Beside her head stood a pair of rigid feet. The High Priest stared at her in a daze. Vizier’s triumphant voice rang out.

“The Devil has revealed herself! Seize that woman and send her back to Thebes. The great Queen Mother Hatshepsut will personally sacrifice her to the gods and offer her to the mighty Amun-Ra!”

Abal’s answer was to crack the whip. The lash swept cleanly over all three warhorses without discrimination. Jiang Yuan dug a little pellet out of the pouch she carried and hurled it hard at the ground.

Of course, nothing happened at first. The crowd bolted backward from the flying black hole, shoving, trampling, and falling over one another as screams tore through the night. The horses at the very front shrieked and dragged the chariot into the darkness, while Vizier’s chariot formation clumsily wheeled around and gave chase.

This was probably the most exciting night of the High Priest’s life. He heard the air ahead of him speak, and the woman beneath him answer. Neither of them was speaking ancient Egyptian. It was clearly some other, unfamiliar language-and he had only just realized it now!

“The Queen Mother never planned to treat Huosen as a Divine Envoy in the first place!” Abal roared into the wind. “She was going to capture all three of us and sacrifice us together!”

“If she collects all three, she’ll go down in history.” Even at a time like this, Jiang Yuan’s thoughts managed to veer off in another direction as she tried to put herself in Hatshepsut’s mind. “Then she’ll have even more legitimate grounds to become pharaoh!”

At the same time, she got to her feet and grabbed the High Priest on the chariot. Two guards were still hanging on at the back. They raised their weapons at Jiang Yuan in terror, but in front of her, they were utterly outmatched. Ten seconds later, both guards tumbled off the chariot together and went rolling away behind them. Twenty seconds later, Jiang Yuan said apologetically to the High Priest, “Sorry!” After all, he was old. He really could not withstand this sort of rough handling.

The next moment, firelight flared behind them, followed by an ear-splitting explosion in the silent night. The trampling had finally set off a fallen torch, successfully igniting the gunpowder. Some of Vizier’s chariots stopped, looking back in alarm and uncertainty.

She pushed the High Priest off the chariot as gently as she could, but he still rolled several times across the ground, crying out loudly in pain and forcing another group of Vizier’s chariots to stop. From up ahead, Abal said, “Come here. Keep your movements as steady as you can!” Jiang Yuan’s injured hands and feet, naturally, had not healed yet. This kind of maneuver hit her right where it hurt, and her horsemanship was nowhere near as superb as Abal’s. Gritting her teeth, she edged toward the side of the chariot. The vehicle jolted violently, shaking her bones until they ached, while the half-severed reins gave off a nerve-racking creak. One horse broke free from the chariot and ran even faster. From the other horse came Abal’s voice.

“Jump toward me!”

Standing on a chariot that was about to fly off course and jumping toward empty air and a galloping horse-this really was one hell of an exciting night. As Jiang Yuan leaped, she swore she would never again believe Abal’s damned nonsense and cross a desert to save him.

She landed on the horse’s rump and nearly knocked herself unconscious. Luckily, it was her forehead that hit, and Abal immediately grabbed her by the clothes and dragged her onto the horse’s back. The horse had no saddle, so she had no way to sit properly. Abal pressed her down, and she could only flop over the horse’s back and play dead again, rising and falling with its stride.

She looked behind her. Originally, three horses had been pulling that chariot. After two of them broke loose, one horse was still dragging the chariot along. It veered off course and was gradually surrounded and forced to a stop by the other chariots. Judging by what the High Priest had said and Vizier’s personal experience, they would probably spend a very long time groping around the air inside the chariot before spreading out to comb the area for the so-called invisible person. Thank ancient Egypt for having no saddles and no real cavalry. Who knew how long it would take them to realize the Devil had already escaped on horseback?

They did not say anything more, nor did they discuss Huosen’s whereabouts. In all likelihood, that man had already been secretly detained by Vizier, or even sent back to Thebes for Hatshepsut to sharpen her knife and prepare the slaughter. In any case, this was absolutely good news, even if the twists along the way were enough to scare a person into a heart attack. Jiang Yuan was jolted so badly she nearly threw up last night’s dinner, and at the critical moment, Abal finally reined the horse to a stop and looked into the darkness in the distance for movement.

Jiang Yuan did her best to stay quiet. She felt him dismount, then heard him pat the horse’s back with practiced ease to calm it. After a while, his voice murmured by her ear, “Scouts.” She nodded. Abal left. A little while later, several dead men lay on the ground, and Abal came back to fetch her. He briefly told her the information he had forced out of them. “Vizier ordered martial law tonight. Anyone not at their post is to be rounded up.” “What counts as being at their post?” Jiang Yuan asked. Abal answered simply, “Aside from the soldiers, everyone is living in a temporary town far from the pyramid.”

That was smart, because Jiang Yuan obviously could not disguise herself as a soldier. Ancient Egyptian soldiers wore only a skirt and no shirt. They could not ride the horse anymore either, because Jiang Yuan was still visible. That left them with only the original plan: head toward the pyramid on foot. No matter what, the horse had already carried them a long way.

Perhaps because the disaster was finally behind them, the journey was quiet and smooth. The closer they got to the pyramid, the fewer deployed soldiers they ran into, because sightlines were easily blocked by the enormous structure. Torches lit the patrol points, so they only had to choose their route carefully. When they truly could not avoid someone, they knocked the soldier down.
The chaos on the chariots kept the Vizier occupied for the moment. The order he had received was probably “capture the invisible man,” which, beneath the Pyramid of Khufu, was an epic-level difficulty that might not be cleared in a thousand years. Jiang Yuan looked up at the pyramid and thought this to herself. She had never been to Memphis, had never seen the pyramids, and had never, four thousand years in the past, witnessed its silent, towering grandeur like this.

It was truly magnificent, a towering mass of stone. The extraordinary sixty-meter structure rose from the ground before her, and the closer she drew, the more awe-inspiring it became. Gusts of sand swept across the barren road now and then, as if blowing through millennia. It looked down wordlessly upon all living things, bearing the pharaoh’s sleeping mummy and its curse. A miracle stacked up by human hands like that could almost make a person weep from the depths of their heart.

Abal suddenly said, “Dawn is coming.”

This was the darkest hour. Jiang Yuan once again suddenly grasped at his hand and came up empty. Her fingers clenched into a fist, catching only air.

She had experience now, so she waited where she was for a while. This time it took a little longer, but then Abal’s hand gently took hers again. Jiang Yuan had only just opened her mouth when he said in a low voice, “Did you get jolted by the cart again?” She was silent for a moment, then said, “Yeah.” She heard Abal laugh softly. He had probably narrowed those blue eyes of his. “Want the gem?” The gem was on him.

So she very readily answered, “You can give it to me.”

“No,” he said. “Never.”

Even if he was going to disappear, he still would not give it to her. He would drag Jiang Yuan down with him even if he died. Jiang Yuan could not be bothered with him. They started moving again, continuing forward through the sand. The sky gradually brightened, and at last they felt their way to the edge of the pyramid without having to strain themselves dodging soldiers. They leaned against the stone for a brief rest and looked up. The pyramid’s summit was nearly impossible to see. Even knowing they only had to climb halfway, that sixty-meter height still made her legs go weak. Abal said, “Do you think Huosen would have prepared something here ahead of time?”

Jiang Yuan merely pointed out another possibility calmly. “If he’s still here, the explosion will definitely draw him over.”

Abal could not be seen, and Huosen could not be seen either. Two invisible men fighting to the death inside a deep, shadowy tomb-just imagining it was thrilling in the worst way. Abal had no objection. Jiang Yuan saw a gash suddenly appear in the stone beside her with a sharp scrape, before she even had time to feel distressed over it. “Then let’s circle around and look.”

They gritted their teeth and stood up again, moving their aching legs as they circled the pyramid, avoided the soldiers, and carefully searched for any possible opening. When they had gone about halfway around, Abal suddenly tugged at her and said, “Up there.” An unseen hand supported her chin, making her raise her head and angle it in the right direction.

Jiang Yuan had been watching the first and second tiers the whole time, but she had not expected to glimpse a small black hole faintly around the fifth or sixth tier. If not for Abal’s sharp eyes and quick wits, she definitely would have missed it. Sure enough, every profession had its specialty. Jiang Yuan searched nearby and, as expected, found foothold depressions. They began the difficult climb up the pyramid.

At this point, even if the soldiers discovered them, there was nothing to fear. With Abal’s help, Jiang Yuan laboriously hauled herself up to the fifth tier. They looked inside together. The faint trace of a rope coiled around something showed from within, so they had clearly found the right place. She lowered her head, trying hard to see inside. Her first thought was whether there was air. At the final moment, they could not slack off; perhaps they should find a piece of wood and burn it as a test. She turned back and called, “Abal-”

Sunlight dazzled her eyes. No, it was not sunlight, but the keen flash of a weapon. Abal shouted, “Jia Nan!” Everything seemed to happen at once. A tremendous force shoved her down, and she rolled into the pyramid. The sharp corners of the giant stones along the passage struck her so hard she felt as if her bones were about to break. Stars burst before her eyes, sweetness rose in her throat, and she felt as if she had coughed up blood. Through her wavering vision, she vaguely saw a curved blade suspended in midair, flickering in and out of sight, liquid running down its spine.

Then the light above her vanished, leaving only darkness. Jiang Yuan lay on the ground and heard a ferocious voice from above. “…I’ve been waiting for you.” Echoes rolled out, reverberating through the corridor she had fled in countless times in her dreams. Someone let out a hoarse, triumphant roar. “Hand over the gem!” Into Jiang Yuan’s hand, braced against the ground, someone placed a stone, cold enough to bite. Then the hand she was gripping was suddenly empty again.

The hand she had been holding vanished without warning.

All right, let’s start talking about the high-society gossip surrounding Queen Mother Nefertiti. I know you’ve all been looking forward to this for ages. Even if you skip the main text, you still have to read the gossip first. [resentful]

My serious study of Egypt’s history finally has a place to shine, so I’m actually pretty pleased.

This story is rather long and involves quite a few people. Let’s begin with an unrelated commoner queen, Tey.

In the last lecture, we talked about Thutmose III. His great-grandson, Amenhotep III, inherited Egypt’s enormous wealth-open-air gold mines, open-air copper mines, the blessed Nile River that yielded harvests without labor, and so on-and had nothing better to do than indulge himself. He loved his kingdom, and he loved beauties too. Then one day, he discovered that the daughter of a groom in the palace was so delicate and charming that she seemed like a heavenly beauty. Breaking Egyptian tradition-marriages between brothers and sisters-he married her. This was Queen Tey. Her father rose along with her and became a high official in the south. Truly, all parents’ hearts are the same; don’t get reborn as a son, get reborn as a daughter. The important point is that Queen Tey was reportedly on her second marriage. She originally had a husband named Ay. [There is also a version that says she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant.]

After Amenhotep III grew old, he still loved his kingdom and beauties both. Because Egypt had so much gold, it naturally became the strongest empire in the surrounding region, as well as the local money dispenser. He tried diplomacy with Mitanni first, then coercion, forcing them to marry their granddaughter to him-the king was of the same generation as him. And so a fifteen-year-old princess named Tadukhipa was exchanged for a pile of gold and entered his harem. [It is uncertain whether she was a queen.] Tey fell out of favor. It is said that when the Egyptians saw the princess crossing the river with her luxurious dowry, they were struck dumb by her beauty and could not help blurting out, “Nefertiti!” From then on, that became the princess’s name, meaning “the beauty has come.”
Two years later, Amenhotep III grew old, kicked the bucket, and his son Amenhotep IV took the throne. He married his dad’s wife, Nefertiti, and made her queen.

There’s a rather amusing bit of unofficial history that says Amenhotep IV’s statues were hideously ugly, so people suspected he was an alien.

Amenhotep IV himself was pretty alien too. At the time, Egypt’s popular faith centered on Amun, but he up and ordered Amun’s temples destroyed, switched everyone over to Aten-both are Sun God deities, what are you even doing-and changed his name to Akhenaten. This is the Egyptian pharaoh who first appears in Red River. Everything he did was meant to contend with the priesthood, whose divine authority was gradually rising in power. They also moved out of Thebes and chose another place as the royal capital-I forget the name. That capital remained in use until his son ascended the throne and returned to the worship of Amun, at which point they moved back to Thebes.

I’m getting off topic.

The pharaoh who changed his name to Akhenaten had six daughters with Nefertiti. Because of her inhuman beauty, Nefertiti held Egypt’s supreme title for a queen. Who could have expected that thirteen years later, the pharaoh would marry his eldest daughter as a consort, and that title would be snatched away by her own daughter?

Two years after that, the pharaoh married his third daughter as a consort, and even had a son with her.

Grinding my teeth to dust.

A pharaoh that old taking girls that young-drive too hard and you die early. Sure enough, within a couple of years he was gone too. Nefertiti chose a stepson to inherit the throne-I don’t remember his name, but anyway, same kind of move as with the Thutmose bunch-and he married the eldest daughter from two lines above as his queen. Two years later, he died too.

Nefertiti had no choice but to choose another stepson-still the same maneuver-and had him marry the third daughter from two lines above as his queen. Now comes the important part. You have definitely heard of this stepson: he was the world-famous Tutankhaten. After moving the capital back to Thebes, he changed his name to Tutankhamun.

Tragic, right? As we all know, Tutankhamun died at eighteen. All the princes who could have become pharaoh were dead. What now? Nothing could be done.

Nefertiti told her daughter to find another pharaoh to marry. The queen in charge at this point was that third daughter, the third princess. Her name was Ankhesenamun-there are a ton of translations, so I’m using the one I can remember. She cried her eyes out and said she would die before marrying another man from Egypt, and told them to write a letter to the Hittite side asking for a prince to come be pharaoh.

Does this sound familiar to everyone? That’s right, it’s exactly that plotline from Red River. That Hittite prince Zannanza who went to apply for the job of Egyptian pharaoh! When I read this part, thunder rolled through my brain. In the manga, Ankhesenamun cried so beautifully, so pitifully, and loved her husband so much-when in reality, she had already had a son with her own father, spent two sweet years of married life with her own younger brother, and was already on her third marriage! Her third marriage!!!

The Hittite prince-he was not called Zannanza, and I don’t care what his name was-successfully died on the road. With no other choice, Ankhesenamun married a domestic general named Ay. Pharaoh Ay took the throne.

Now let’s dig up that Queen Tey I mentioned first before. Do you see the problem? Yes. Her former husband was called Ay.

The Egyptian royal family completed one magnificent internal loop… Let us bow down in worship…

Actually, the unofficial history around Queen Tey isn’t very reliable. Because I found another version that says Tey was the daughter of an important Egyptian minister, and Ay was her older brother. But it’s hard to say, isn’t it? After all, everyone knows sibling marriage was an Egyptian tradition.

This story spans six pharaohs and a whole pile of mothers and daughters. Strictly speaking, only two of those pharaohs were handled by Nefertiti herself, but the whole story revolves around her, so it was only natural to choose her to explain this mess of relationships.

To summarize:

Grandpa took the female lead as his second wife.

After Grandpa died, the female lead married his son.

The female lead and two granddaughters shared one husband.

After the son died, the eldest granddaughter married the eldest grandson.

After the eldest grandson died, the third granddaughter married the third grandson.

After the third grandson died, there was no one left to marry, so they dragged in some doomed guy from outside. The doomed guy failed to withstand the curse and died halfway there.

The third granddaughter, carrying a child, then dragged in a guard from her own household.

Why does it sound so bland when I put it like that? Not gossipy or melodramatic at all.

Ankhesenamun really did love Tutankhamun. Murals record that during the days when she lived with Pharaoh Ay, she often ordered buildings and murals constructed to commemorate the time she had spent with Tutankhamun.

And yet life and death are ruled by fate; wealth and honor are not up to man.