The Less Lonely Planet

by Rhys Hughes

  “What?” King Zoser clutches the arms of his throne. His knuckles turn the colour of camel’s milk cheese. “The insolent virago! What was she implying by this?”

  Sinuhe’s voice drops an octave. “She continued by insulting you personally as a corrupt and ineffectual reactionary and criticising all of Egypt as a stagnant society. She said that we wasted massive resources on pointless tasks while neglecting to reform the living standards of our common people. She cited the pyramids as a prime example. I told her that I did not know what a ‘pyramid’ was, but she laughed at me and called me a liar. It was our own fault that she had arrived in our time, she added, and we had no-one to blame but ourselves.”

  “Outrageous!” King Zoser can barely speak for wrath. “There are no pyramids in Egypt, nor shall there ever be! I’ll see to that!”

  “She insisted that there would be many, very soon, and that it was you who had ordered them built in the first place! When the earthquake struck, and the shrew and herself hurtled down into the fissure, she called out that she would return in a century or two...”

  “Ah!” King Zoser sighs. “Will the endless wheel ever revolve smoothly again? I fear that there is a crease in Mother Time’s fabric that will never be ironed out. Go now, good Sinuhe, and leave me to ferment in my own despair. It is no use asking for justice in this world. The best we can hope for is mercy.”

  Sinuhe bows, retrieves his smashed helmet and departs in a flurry of needless gestures and devoted expressions.

  “And that is in pitifully short supply...” King Zoser says to himself. But she is there to comfort him again, by his side, cool hands stroking his brow. “Ah, my little mausoleum, how pleased I am to have you here! But tell me, droplet of rain, what think you of this? The shrew came to punish us because we indulged in the building of pyramids, which have neither rhyme nor reason! Then it is Imhotep’s fault, is it not?”

  “It would seem so.” His principal wife nods her slow, wise head. “Yes, that would seem logical enough, if a little harsh...”

  “What is to be done with him then? Tell me, my Ibis in flight! Would it be going too far to extract his brains by way of his heels as Sobekneferure did to the nomadic insurgents in the ruins of Buto?”

  “Too far. Banishment would be enough. To Nubia.” Her eyes are glinting with a mysterious light all their own.

  “Ah, my unarthritic bone, you are as considerate as ever!”

  The bustle resumes once more. The shadow reappears, as if it were a stick waved in front of a candle that has been lit, extinguished and then lit again. It wavers, it teeters. Loaded down with charts and sundry pieces of papyrus, it staggers towards the throne.

  “Imhotep!” King Zoser knits his fearsome brows.

  “Here, your majesty!” Imhotep selects a drawing and offers it to the King. “I have done as you requested. Here is a great variety of designs for a mousetrap, none of which have anything to do with pyramids.”

  King Zoser studies the first drawing. “You lie! This is a pyramid!”

  “Ah yes, my liege, possibly that one slipped through the net. Here, try this one...”

  “This is also a pyramid!”

  “A simple enough mistake, your majesty! Please be patient and take a look at this one. I know this will please you!”

  “Yet another!” King Zoser rolls his eyes.

  Imhotep breaks down. Tears spring out and cascade down his weathered cheeks. “Pyramids are all I do!” he wails.

  They watch him cry for long minutes. Eventually, even hardened King Zoser is moved enough to offer the hapless architect a kind glance. Imhotep blows his nose in one of his designs and continues to sob.

  “One last chance...” he blubbers.

  King Zoser nods exasperated assent and Imhotep perks up almost instantly. With a great flourish, he hands King Zoser the largest piece of papyrus in his possession. The King takes it and squints. “Well what is it exactly?”

  “A pyramid, sire. Shall I order it built?”

  “Over my dead body!”

  “As you wish, sire.” Imhotep fumbles with the charts and trips in the long backwards retreat that any mortal must make in the presence of the god-king. One of his scrawls flutters away into the shadows, unseen by all save the one who sees all. She moves forward and picks it up, folding the crackling papyrus and concealing it within the folds of her garment.

  King Zoser merely raises an eyebrow. He is too tired.

  “A sketch for a most remarkable design, sire.” She smiles again and he feels himself once more ready to plough forward through this most ill-starred of days. “One of his best, I assure you.”

  “No, I have had enough of his infernal pyramids.”

  “This is not a pyramid, sire. This is something quite different. A scarecrow. A scarecrow for a giant shrew. Despite your low opinion of his other work, this one will please you mightily, believe me.”

  The sigh is almost inaudible. “You have won me over again, my dew drop. Let me see it then.” King Zoser extends his hand.

  “Not yet. You are tired. You must rest. In the morning, I will show you. There is still time.”

  “Time? I thought so too, once...”

  “Cynicism, sire? Come now, let us sleep away our worries and deny such a day in our dreams.” And she leads him by the hand from the throne and down private passageways to their bedroom. Her perfume curls like a finger whose purpose is to beckon and he stumbles forward in her wake. They find their bed, adorned with flowers and amethysts, and sweep all onto the floor and King Zoser yawns a mighty yawn and sits on the edge of the bed and stretches his arms, his crown falling down over one eye.

  “I just need to clean my teeth. I won’t be long.” She is away from his arms as blithely as she had rushed into them; she is both the net and its caster, he decides as he repeats the yawn. There are no windows in this room, but he can hear the swell of the river on the other side of the walls, for this bedroom is at ground level, which is as it should be: only fools would ever sleep suspended in the air.

  He toys with ideas as Sleep digs her sharpened talons into the corners of his mind and lifts his damp brain out of his cranium, bearing it away with a laugh to the land of sweet oblivions. Some of these ideas are so startling that he knows he will have to share them with his wife on her return, even though he is too befuddled to really understand either their source or their implications.

  When she does return, he notices that her teeth are still black with the liquorice of late morning. Either her dental ablutions have been less than thorough or else she has lied to him.

  “I have been thinking, my large piece of lapis lazuli, that things might be explained in one fell swoop.”

  “What things, my liege?”

  “Oh, various discrepancies and suchlike.” He removes his crown and places it on a little table by the side of the bed. “Such as how events have been moving too quickly for a single day. All that has unfolded since the sun rose, and was wrapped up before the sun fell again, should have taken place over the course of months. How did the messengers follow so closely on each other’s heels? And how did Sinuhe arrive from Saqqara so rapidly? Something has been amiss; there are mysteries afoot and one solution occurs to me.”

  “Oh yes?” For once, his wife seems a little nervous.

  “Let us suppose, for a moment, that everything the ‘Sybil’ said was true: that she was a visitor from another time and that her country was at war with another. What would happen if her rivals knew about her scheme to travel into the past to steal grain? Would they not try to meddle in time travel themselves? Would they not also seek to travel into the same past to thwart her machinations?”

  “What an imagination you have!” His wife attempts a laugh, but it is hollow indeed. “And it is you who complain that things are too complex! Perhaps weariness has thrown a blanket over your senses?”

  But King Zoser is warming to his theme. “If this ‘Greece’ had a time machine, why could not ‘Troy’ have one as well? Perhaps th
e skills of ‘Daedalus’ could be bought? Someone from this latter realm might have travelled back to a point before that of the ‘Sybil’, specifically to await her arrival. They could have used their own time travel powers to arrange matters so that everything came together on one single day: the arrival and destruction of the ‘Sybil’. Time to such a person would be no more than the clay in the potter’s hands.”

  “But would not such a person stand out like a thumb struck by a copper hammer? Both in colour and rhythm of life? Would not their very speech be different in their foreign mouths?”

  “That depends on how well prepared they were before they arrived.” King Zoser sighs. “Anyway, my beautiful rain cloud, I have had enough of such speculations. Let us lay our weary heads down and bolt the portals of consciousness. Come my arable acre, my fertile flood plain, my very own wonderful Helen.” He frowns slightly. “That’s not an Egyptian name is it? Helen? Now that I come to think of it...”

  She blushes slightly and hands him the piece of papyrus she had picked up from the floor on Imhotep’s departure. “Take a look at this, my liege. Although I said that it would wait for the morning, I really do think that it will interest you.”

  King Zoser rubs his bleary eyes into an analogue of focus. “What is it?” He chews his lip. “A giant cat!” He shakes his head in weary wonderment. “And the ink is still wet! I don’t understand...”

  “A scarecrow. A scarecrow for a giant shrew.” His wife takes the papyrus back and climbs into bed next to him. “It does not have to be built for a century or two yet. You may leave the construction work to your descendants.”

  “And what is it called, this giant cat?”

  “I had thought of naming it the ‘Sphinx’. What do you think?”

  King Zoser mumbles as he drifts off to sleep. “It will never catch on, my enigmatic oasis...”

  And he dreams a series of strange dreams. And in the morning, and during all the days that follow, he begins to doubt that such a time ever really took place. All returns to normal. He listens to the reed pipes of Nubian musicians and follows the path of the palace spiders. He plays board games with his wife in the hollow gloom and watches the flooding of the Nile (stretched nerve in the body of the land, finger in the nostril of fecundity) and the bending of swords into sickles and back again. He calls for bread and beer and spits out the tiny grains that grind all teeth to dust. The year turns, forever turns, as it should.

  But sometimes, when he ventures out upon the palace balconies, he seems to see anomalies in the distance. Far away, in the direction of Saqqara, he catches what appears to be an unnatural mirage; the rising up of what could almost be, did he not know better, the outlines of a pyramid, vast and unwanted and shimmering like a stone ghost.

  At other times, at night, when he has called for perhaps too much beer, he is entertained by an illusion that makes him laugh and cry and clap his hands all at once. And though he knows it to be an illusion, it seems not so far removed from the general illusion that is life itself. Far away across the dunes, washed by the moon, a giant cat chases a giant mouse under the lolling tongue of the Dog Star.

  Thief Among Thieves

  Carabal stood and watched the stars as he cleaned his blade. Two booted feet jutted out of a dark doorway. A trickle of blood began a venture down the alley.

  “Bah! May Zazael gnaw your bones!”

  Carabal spat in disgust. The man’s purse had been empty, but he had not allowed himself to be killed easily. Indeed, he had put up a mighty resistance. A leprous pox on all such!

  Searching the body, Carabal found an amulet inscribed with abstract runes. It was a curious object. When he held it up, it refused to hang straight but slanted to one side. Pocketing his meagre prize, he set off to find a tavern.

  Down the filthy backstreets he went, leaping over the potholes that blocked his path. He was as fleet as a shadow; his eyes were as keen as his blade. As he negotiated the mazy ways of the city, he sighed and reflected on all his bad fortune.

  He had been in Abarak for almost a week now, but had little to show for all his hard work. Most of his victims had been poorer than himself. The City of Myriad Glooms was turning out to be a disappointment.

  It was not long before he chanced upon that which he desired. The nameless tavern lay sandwiched between tall rows of crumbling houses. Pushing open the rotting wooden door, he entered and strode over to the low trestle table that served as a bar. As was customary in Abarak, the tavern was illuminated by a single light source. Suspended from the ceiling, an inverted skeleton described slow circles, a brazier of coals glowing inside its hollow skull.

  Taking a seat, Carabal called to the barman: “Ho, wine! And none of your goblin’s sweat. My lips can tolerate only the best!”

  “Moonmoth wine!” replied the barman. “Brewed by eunuchs in the lost gardens of the Mad Twist himself. Fortified by tears of weeping virgins. Blessed by the priests of Ebolaaish in unusual rituals!”

  “Bah! A malignant pustule on your prattlings!” hissed Carabal. But he allowed the barman to pour him a large frothing jug of the stuff and drained it at a single gulp.

  “More, buffoon!” he demanded, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. The barman obliged and this jug went the way of the first. “Excellent! Yet my throat is still dry. It requires further lubrication.”

  Three jugs later, the barman hesitated when Carabal called for yet another refill. “Is there a problem?” Carabal idly inquired.

  “None whatsoever. But first I think that a little payment might be forthcoming.” The barman glared from heavy-lidded eyes.

  “You think me untrustworthy? This is an insult!” Carabal drew back. “I will leave on the instant!” And he slammed his empty jug down and made to depart.

  “Not so fast.” The barman reached out and seized him by the collar. “Pay up now or have your bones mashed to an oozy pulp!”

  “My bones are hollow and mash easily!” Carabal protested. He squirmed in the grasp but could not wriggle free. He reached inside his pocket, withdrew the amulet and threw it onto the bar. “Very well. Take this for your sour toenail brew. However, be sure to give me change, as its value is far greater than a mere five jugs!”

  The barman released Carabal and held the amulet up to the light. He frowned as he squinted at the runes and a look of terror crossed his face. “Where did you get this? This is none other than the pendant of Lord Adrab the Unlikely, he who wanders the city at night looking for souls to snatch! See how it dangles at an oblique angle? It points always to his grim tower. Thus can he find his way home again after he has completed his grisly task.”

  At the mention of this name, the tavern suddenly grew very quiet. Heads swiveled to regard Carabal.

  “Bah! An umbelliferous toadstool on your nape!” Carabal scratched his huge beak of a nose. “The amulet is my own. Return it at once if it excites your superstitions!”

  “By all means. I wish to have nothing to do with Adrab. They say he is not a man at all, but a demon spewed up from subterranean realms by an earthquake. They say he drinks from sewers.”

  “His tower is full of treasures from all over the land,” added one of the drinkers. “Precious gems and gold, silks and a thousand ornaments of dubious origin but inestimable worth.”

  “And magical treasures too,” mumbled another.

  Carabal’s eyes twinkled. “Rich you say? And this amulet points to his manse? By the eyebrows of Kroon!”

  The barman seemed to guess the purpose of Carabal’s questions. “Many have tried to force entrance into his tower. None have ever returned and none ever will while Adrab lives.”

  And hiding his face with his hand, Carabal smiled a secret smile.

  Carabal smoothed down his hair and rubbed his aching limbs. What a hideous commotion the barman had made! After returning the amulet he had demanded payment again. This was true insolence!

  Carabal smirked. He had taught the barman a lesson! His fearsome wedge of a blade had prised the fool’s ribs
apart. And his second thrust had severed the cords binding the skeleton lamp to the ceiling. Hot coals had spilled everywhere. Even now the tavern was burning.

  Pausing for breath, Carabal studied his surroundings. He was lost, of course, yet he had managed to outdistance his pursuers. He knew they would be reluctant to venture far out of familiar territory.

  Abarak, more so than any other city in the Uneven Lands, was a monster. Legend had it that the first Mad Twist had commissioned three different architects to design the layout of the streets, but unable to decide between the final plans, had ordered all three to be constructed simultaneously, one on top of the other. Thus Abarak became the first three-tiered capital. The Mad Twist was delighted.

  Since then, however, some pillars holding up the higher levels had collapsed and now parts of the City veered at crazy angles, broken streets and alleyways from above meshing with those below to form new, unplanned thoroughfares. On top of this, indiscriminate building had continued at an alarming rate, leaving the whole megalopolis a nightmarish warren of jumbled houses and lanes. The city was now so difficult to escape that ensnared travellers often maintained it stretched to infinity on all sides.

  Carabal held up the amulet and made his way in the direction it indicated. With hollow bones, he was able to leap any obstructions that might have impeded his progress. These bones were the legacy of a curse earned by a distant ancestor who had insulted the Mad Twist’s helical hairstyle; they made him unfit for any sort of heavy manual work but served him well in his present profession.

  It was well-nigh impossible trying to follow a direct route to the tower of Lord Adrab the Unlikely. Carabal found himself forced to take long detours down poorly lit streets which nearly always curved away from his intended destination. More than once, he ended up travelling in the exact opposite direction to the one he wanted. But eventually, by a route circuitous in the extreme, he entered a district almost completely depopulated of inhabitants. He guessed he was drawing near.