Land of Punt, 9th year of the reign of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut
Haremwia stood amongst the massed ranks of all the members of the trade expedition’s, as protocol and tradition demanded, his gaze fixed directly ahead on the ceremonial headdress of the man in front of him, however tempting it was to look at the wonders surrounding him on all sides.
Far ahead of him, the leaders of the expedition were reading out the long proclamation on behalf of the Pharaoh herself, who remained seated and serene in her great litter. The speech celebrated the longstanding trading links between the Kingdom and their neighbours across the mountains, documented the efforts they had taken to reopen the trade routes following the depredations of the regrettable recent past, and laid out her most sincere wish that the favour with which their forebears had looked upon each other would be extended once more in both directions, and so on and so on …
They had been standing for at least an hour, and a summer hour at that. The speeches must surely be coming to an end soon, and Haremwia might just get a chance to explore the city and its fantastic architecture once they had been formally welcomed. Even the glimpses he’d seen on the way in were impressive – buildings all around, standing almost as tall as the Great Pyramid without the need for such a wide base, with intricate murals surrounding them punctuated by whole sheets of glass, each of which must contain more than could be found in all the reliquaries and royal residences of the New Kingdom. And yet from what he had been able to gather, these were not temples, tombs or palaces, but residential and commercial areas, like entire city districts that had been folded up to be stacked vertically.
Finally, the lead envoy stopped speaking. The King and Queen rose from their litters, contrasting physically in almost every way but united in the way they gave the impression of perfect assurance in their power over everything around them.
There was a long moment, then the Queen spoke, her voice crystal clear even as far back as Haremwia was standing, as though the sound came not from a single source but the air itself was bending to her will to get her message across. “You are all most welcome.” A single simple phrase, and then the court musicians began to play, a jaunty tune over a percussive rhythm that almost demanded to be danced to. Haremwia was no great dancer at the best of times, but he could feel it insinuating its way into his feet. Around him, everyone else seemed as confused as he was. They had been ready for a speech as long and flowery as their own leaders had given, but this music gave the distinct impression that the formalities were over. Haremwia looked to his foreman, who looked back with a shrug, and Haremwia noticed that his toes had begun to tap.
The confusion seemed greatest at the front of the procession, the envoys unsure how to deal with such a breach in protocol, until it became clear that discipline had already broken behind them. Like bubbles forming in boiling water, small pockets amongst the ranks had begun to move to the intoxicating rhythms, pulling in those around them until the whole great assembly of Egypt’s finest traders, craftsmen and soldiers turned from a parade to a party. One more time, the Queen’s voice carried through the air, just as clear as before even over the music and the hubbub. “Dance, my friends, dance!”
At that, the envoys gave up and joined the party. How to explain it all to the Pharaoh on their return would be a question for another day, clearly.
The next morning Haremwia woke with a surprisingly clear head, in the living area of a dwelling that belonged to … who, exactly? He searched his hazy memory but the answer came when a man with close cropped hair emerged from the kitchen with a cup of some sort of black broth.
Haremwia searched his memory, trying to remember exactly what had happened last night as the partying had continued long past sunset. He remembered the moment when the rays of the setting sun had illuminated the reliefs on the towers all around, and even more so the glass panels, making them sparkle magnificently.
He remembered gabbling excitably to his Puntite companion, who had found Haremwia’s reaction as amusing as he had found Haremwia himself attractive, judging by where he had ended up. He sipped at the dark liquid in the cup, hoping that it would give him time to try to recall the man’s name,.and exactly what they might have done.
The drink was bitter but enervating. “It’s made from the beans of a plant that grows across the water. Sharpens the mind, especially after a long night.”
“I see,” Haremwia said. Hoping that its properties might extend to memory restoration, he took another, longer sip.
“I’m so sorry,” the man said. “I’m sure you told me your name last night, but I can’t bring it to mind right now.”
“Haremwia,” he said, wondering if he could be so bold as to make the same admission.
“Let’s start again, shall we? Hello, Haremwia; I’m Radem.”
“Hello, Radem,” Haremwia said with a feeling of extreme relief.
Unexpectedly, Radem pulled him in for a kiss, before stopping abruptly and saying, “I remembered how you tasted, at least.”
Haremwia put his hand to his lips, as though his fingertips could taste Radem on him. Memories were starting to come back now of exactly what had transpired last night, and he felt his lips curving into a smile.
“Come on,” Radem said, “I promised to show you what the windows were like from the inside.” The Puntite language was a close enough cousin to Egyptian that most of the time they were mutually intelligible, but that one word was unfamiliar. When Radem led Haremwia over to the huge sheet of glass making up most of one wall, however, the meaning became clear.
That wasn’t all that was clear — Haremwia could see all the way down to the ground. A very, very long way down.
Suddenly he was unsteady on his feet, then dizzy and nauseous, and then he was back on the bed, being brought round by an amused Radem. “I forget that you don’t have towers like this.”
“We have towers,” Haremwia said. “I personally carved the relief on …” He gave up. “But no, not like this.”
“You’ll get used to it, I promise.”
Punt turned out to be full of surprises, most of which Haremwia found much harder to get used to than Radem seemed to think was necessary. Even after months, when the Pharaoh had long since departed again leaving her delegation behind, Radem would regularly smile lightly at Haremwia’s continued bemusement.
There was the frank acknowledgement from others around them of his and Radem’s blossoming relationship, for one thing. It wasn’t that anyone back home objected, exactly, but there was always that lingering sense from his family, friends and acquaintances that seeking not just fleeting pleasure but romance and lasting bonding with his fellow men wasn’t quite in alignment with Maat and all the other divinities’ best laid plans for the divine order.
Then there was the architecture, which continued to defy his understanding. He could see how the great towering buildings stayed up, but it remained beyond him how they could ever have been put up successfully in the first place. The old scrolls told of the complex wooden structures that had encrusted themselves around the outside of the pyramids as they grew taller and taller, only to be removed in short order when the decades-long construction was finally complete. But if similar techniques had been used here, each scaffold would surely have had to be so large that it would have precluded having so many other, equally tall buildings in close proximity. And that was before you got to the prodigious quantities of glass, so flat and smooth that if it had been snapped off from a great bulb that had been carefully grown and grown until its curvature was near undetectable, the only imaginable glassblower for the job would have been Ra himself.
Other members of the expedition seemed less enraptured, either growing to take the wonders of their host city for granted, or increasingly seeing them as intrinsically threatening. If they had such technology, the soldiers muttered to one another, why had they not conquered all before them? The mountains would be no barrier, surely. The temple attendants were less certain, reminding them that this was the land of the gods, Ra’s place of rising and the reputed ancestral home of the earliest pharaohs. It was somewhere between treasonous and sacrilegious to assume ill intent on the part of the Puntites. But neither was it a surprise to discover their high technology, the way it was to Haremwia.
Increasingly, Haremwia found himself distanced from his own people, their attitudes and concerns. As the time to begin the return journey approached, the ships less than a cubit above the water, laden down as they were with all the goods they had traded for, Haremwia found himself wishing he could stay.
It wasn’t because of Radem, he told himself. Or at least, not only because of Radem.
On the day before their scheduled departure, Radem woke Haremwia early and took him through a maze-like sequence of alleys and back streets to somewhere Haremwia had never been before. They were on the outskirts of the city, in what looked at first glance to be a huge quarry. But on closer inspection, it seemed to be a workshop as well: the slabs lined up were not rough-hewn but intricately carved with the complex symbology that Haremwia had slowly learned, imperfectly and incompletely, to interpret during his time here, under Radem’s patient tuition.
There was other activity going on as well: huge slabs of glass were being lifted delicately from the sand, as though they had sprung into existence there fully formed. He knew that glass was fused sand, had seen the twisted shapes left behind sometimes after lightning strikes, but surely it wasn’t possible to do it on such a wide scale?
The more he looked, the stranger everything seemed. He saw someone sitting in front of a huge stone slab, staring at it with a level of concentration that he recognised as the first stage of considering how best to chip away at it to achieve the desired design. But as he watched, he realised that the stone was re-arranging itself into the desired shapes without any chisel or hammer involved. And as he looked back over to where the glass was being extracted, he saw that one person was plunging his hand into the sand, which then began to glow red hot.
He realised then what this was: a construction site. Everything around here would eventually be assembled into another tower thrusting straight up high into the sky.
“The land of the gods,” Haremwia said quietly.
“We are no gods, my love,” Radem said.
A man who was by his mien undeniably some sort of foreman strode over officiously. “Outsiders are forbidden where the Adepts are practising,” he said, directing his comment entirely to Radem, as though ignoring Haremwia would somehow make him disappear.
“Then I put it to you that if he is here, it cannot be that he is an outsider.”
The woman’s voice filled the air around the three of them, though no one else was near and no one further away seemed to notice. It took Haremwia a moment to recognise it, so much time had passed since the expedition arrived.
“Your Majesty,” the foreman said, immediately turning and sinking to his knees when he saw her litter, which had been carried to the far corner of the construction site seemingly without being noticed. Radem sank to his knees as well, before all the others around did likewise, Haremwia eventually joining them.
“Approach me, present yourselves to Queen Ati,” said the voice to the three of them, though Haremwia could also hear it faintly, simultaneously saying “Return to your work, and please do forgive my intrusion,” to the others present.
As they crossed to the litter, Haremwia stole a glance at Radem, who was practically grinning. All at once, he understood why Haremwia’s reaction to what he had seen in Punt was such a source of amusement: there were far more wonders here than he could ever have imagined.
“I apologise for my presumption, Your Majesty,” the foreman said with a bow so low that it was almost as though he was offering his head to an executioner’s axe. “I did not realise this individual was here at your invitation.”
Queen Ati laughed. “It was not really my invitation. But I did not forbid it from happening.”
The foreman turned on Radem. “You vouch for him?”
“I have never met one with such untrammelled curiosity,” Radem said. “If anyone can study as a Proficient, and eventually become an Adept at an advanced age, it is surely he.”
Haremwia did not consider himself to be of any sort of “advanced age” but that was the least troubling implication of what Radem had said. “Then, all along, this was … You were– Were we–?”
“Fear not, my friend,” the queen said. “Knowing Adept Radem, I’m certain he noticed your other … qualities first.” She gave him an appraising look. “I mean, you’re not my type, but then I’m not yours, am I?”
“Your Majesty …” Haremwia began, but he was quite at a loss how to go on without giving offence.
She laughed. “I have made you uncomfortable, oh dear. Alongside your training, you will also have to learn how to lighten up.”
“I have been trying,” Radem said, causing more laughter.
The foreman bowed again. “I must attend to my duties,” he said with another bow.
“You don’t want to end up like him,” Queen Ati said through her guffaws.
“I am not sure I understand what is happening here,” Haremwia said. “I must leave tomorrow with the rest of the retinue–“
“Must you?” the queen said sharply. “Why?”
“I am bound by honour and by bloodline to the guild of masons, even as far back as the seventh generation,” Haremwia said. “Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s temple complex must be decorated with the finest, most ornate depictions of our journey. That is why I was sent along with the expedition in the first place.” The words tumbled out of him almost as a reflex, driven as they were the sense that had been inculcated in him since earliest childhood that he was but a tiny part in a grand cosmic order, but must play his part perfectly for fear of chaos breaking the world apart.
And yet, hadn’t so much that had happened here in Punt challenged whether that part was right for him? Would it not be a break from the order designed by any god with a sense of compassion for him to be separated from Radem? Perhaps sometimes Maat had her finger on the scales even before the afterlife.
“There are plenty of others who can help build the temple,” Radem said gently. “Here with the expedition and back in Egypt. You’re the only one being offered a chance to stay.”
“And I’m sure Hatshepsut will forgive your absence if I send another frankincense tree in your stead,” the queen said. “And I doubt your excitable descriptions of your trip would fit the narrative she and we both want to preserve.”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, I really don’t understand.”
Ati turned more serious. “There are many things about this land which are misunderstood by the world outside. Most often, that is by our deliberate design, and the connivance of those we allow to discover the routes here. Back in your homeland, the story is already being told of how the great pharaoh cowed the primitives of the far off land and demanded tribute from them.”
“Surely–“
“Quite apart from Hatshepsut giving me her word that she would say exactly that, and the obvious political advantage she gains thereby, the Scrying Guild have assured me of the truth of it.”
“The … Scrying Guild?”
Radem spoke for the first time in a while. “We can … not see, not truly, but perceive things a great way off.”
“Then you’re one of these … Adepts?”
“There are many different talents to which a properly trained mind can be turned. Once the secrets of algebra and geometry are properly understood, all manner of things become possible. Shan over there is making the glass for the windows using his pyrokinesis, the sculptors chip away with nothing but their minds. And …” He turned, directing Haremwia’s gaze to where the parts of the lowest level of the tower were floating through the air in unison, a whole group of people Haremwia had not previously noticed guiding them with gestures. “They don’t need to do all that handwaving, but it’s the easiest way to co-ordinate with each other.”
“Makes my little trick with my voice seem rather impressive, doesn’t it?” Ati said with a sigh. “You see, Haremwia — yes, I’ve known your name for some time, ever since Adept Radem put you forward for recruitment — the legends of your people are true, after a fashion. This is the land of your ancestors who built those great tombs on the plateau. Not because the pharaonic line came from here, but because this is where the Adepts came to escape. It took years, but the great building projects of Khufu and the others were complex and all-consuming enough for some — slaves and overseers alike, though obviously the former were far greater in number — to begin to learn how to apply the cosmic truths. If you join us, you will be carrying on that same tradition, so many centuries later.”
Haremwia’s head was spinning. He looked at Radem. “This is a lot to take in, and so close to when we are supposed to leave.” He stopped, swallowed hard as he thought. “I swear that if I do return to Egypt, I will keep your secrets to my grave and beyond.”
“But do you want to return?” It was the queen who said the words, but only Radem’s face that he saw.
“No,” he said finally. “No, I don’t.”
“Then welcome, Proficient Haremwia, to the greatest adventure of your life.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Radem said. “Thank you!” He turned and grabbed Haremwia’s hands, bringing them to his lips and kissing them, before pulling him into an embrace.
As he felt the warmth of Radem’s body wrapped around him and heard Queen Ati’s quiet chuckling, Haremwia couldn’t help but look over Radem’s shoulder as the construction progressed by such seemingly magical means.
As the pieces of the tower slotted together, Haremwia felt as though something similar was happening to him: for the first time in his life, he fit in. There was no doubt, this was where he was meant to be.