And His Name Is Dennitza. Daughter of Dawn

«Angel!» She repeated it as if for the first time she had heard the word itself. «Do you know what this name means?»

«He … – that is, a stranger in the sands. – He said that it means a messenger, a messenger with a message…»

«For our family, yes,» the golden head nodded condescendingly in agreement. «But for you this word means something else…» an instant throw of the hand, like a snake that caught his throat, squeezed. Alais’s lips, breathing fire, tilted to his ear to hiss just one word. «Evil!»

Absolute evil! He felt it rather than heard it. The auricle was burned. How hot her breath is! She could have set the whole city on fire if she had just died. But for now, she kept herself in a cold, regal manner. How long will this last yet?

He rubbed his neck excitedly after she finally released him. Even before that, Merira suspected that a being called an angel carries in itself an indescribable evil. One had only to look at Alais to feel this evil. Something malicious, oppressive, all-crushing emanated from her beauty… Those who looked at her felt like crushed insects at her feet. Perhaps this is how it should be, if the creature in front of you is from the angelic race. But who are these angels after all? If they are higher than the gods, and people, and earthly rulers, then where did they come from?

All the questions led nowhere, and Alais’s beautiful lips grinned coldly. When she smiled, it seemed that not a smile, but a snake ran over her lips. And at the same time, something in her inexpressibly attracted.

«Then what does your name mean? The name that you carry now?» he did not give up, trying to get at least something from her. There is something that has power over her. In any case, there is always hope to find at least one weak point.

«But this does not concern you any more».

Merira watched as she imperceptibly circled the hall, her movements were deliberately slow and at the same time seemed impetuous. The wings fluttering behind them reminded of a storm in the sands. Alais was more self-confident than any kings. She, too, looked into the motionless faces of the statues, but felt only triumph. No remorse. But it was she who drove them all out of here.

«You probably want a war to break out because of you».

«War?» Alais grinned cruelly. «War for me means an indisputable victory. The hand that has risen on me will immediately dry up, the sword aimed at me will instantly turn against its owner. I know who my father is, and this is not one of the deathly Egyptian gods, but you know his name».

She bent down and whispered in his ear. And these were the words of an angel.

The winged man in the sand seemed to be saying the same to him, but the way she said it sounded scary, almost like a snake. More precisely, she would have scared the snake with her hiss. What a stark contrast to such beauty. For some reason, this combination made it even worse.

Alais knew her own worth, and was fully aware of her own strength. She will crush the whole world, just step on him with her heel, and he will crack under the weight of her oppression.

«Maybe he’s worth it,» her eyes declared slyly. «With the pettiness of people and their intrigues, with their hypocrisy. Show me at least one infinitely kind person, and I will spare the world for his sake, as Michael (this is the name of that winged guard that you saw in the sands) is ready to do for the sake of only one believer as a whole a swarm of wicked people. He has repeatedly stated that only one person devoted to God is worth sparing an entire country of atheists for the sake of his sincere faith. He believes that the faith of one pays for the excesses of many. Let’s say I’m ready to do the same, but I need one absolutely pure soul. A person who never wishes harm to anyone and under any circumstances. If I see such a person and do not be disappointed in him, as God was disappointed in me, then I may save the human world from destruction, which the Almighty now wants. After all, he created the devil as punishment for arrogant people. He created me.» The tip of the snake tongue licked his cheek. «I am a punishing force because people have become too cruel. Rivers of blood must be shed to cleanse the world that God so carelessly created. He already regrets it, although he does not want to openly admit it. Hypocrisy is his strong point, but not mine. I speak openly, even though the truth hurts. I will not regret people, only beautiful things made by their hands, but there are already plenty of them in the world. Show me someone I can regret to stop me. Time is limited. Thirteen sunrises because thirteen is my favorite number».

Her wings flapped again, gracefully and somehow dangerously, as if they could twine around him and strangle him in a deadly embrace. Merira reluctantly retreated.

«It’s a fair deal,» he nodded. If only she fulfills her conditions…

«Just one person,» Alais repeated. «You only need to find one, but someone who will not disappoint me. He alone must be so pure as to become worthy to atone for the sins of all mankind».

The priest was afraid of her. Alais knew that. Backing away, he stumbled and fell. How awkward! Where can he find something.

But the deal was good. Just one soul! Alais had never met one like this before, although it seemed like an eternity remained behind her. Only one person, unlike all people, could change her idea of eternity.

And this man almost became a young man who uttered a strange request the other day in the throne room, but he somehow disappointed her.

Bloody hieroglyph

«If the Nile was filled with blood, and not water, then she would have lived there».

It was Ujai’s voice. Taor did not immediately notice him, and he, it seems, did not notice anything at all, except for his sore hand, which he swaddled with bandages and rocked gently, like a child. He himself seemed to be hiding from everyone and still talked with someone in the void. It seemed that he was absolutely sure that he saw some interlocutor in front of him, although the palace corridor was empty. He must have lost his mind from the injury.

It would be most reasonable to pass by, but Taor decided to show his concern and squatted down in front of the victim.

«Can I help you with something?»

Ujai looked at him like an enemy and even bared his teeth like a beast. Taor was not offended. It was already a sad sight before him. The man is alive, and his hand is already mummified, although not torn from the body. Something was stirring under the bandages. How strange! A withered hand cannot move like a living creature. Or something other than dry flesh is buried under the bandages. Taor remembered the birds that had been slaughtered. Suddenly, crazy with grief, Ujai has bandaged a live bird there, and it is now swarming in its death throes? Or is something bursting out of his body? An absurd idea, but so persistent.

The young man did not know what to say, how to entertain or console the person who seemed to need nothing, but Ujai suddenly spoke himself.

«Did you encounter something similar there, on the battlefield, where you were sent?»

What a meaningful phrase for a madman. Taor was alert. So the man in front of him still has not lost his mind?

«What unusual could I encounter there?» There really was a lot of indescribable happening, but let Ujai touch on this topic himself.

«With creatures that maim or burn people with just one touch, and at the same time look incomparable, although they are still creatures,» his tongue twisted, but his thought was sober. Taor remembered the dead who were resurrected and those who seemed impossible to kill.

«I’ve seen a lot,» he said carefully.

«You’ll see more here», Ujai drawled derisively. «Because here, in the palace, she settled».

«Who is she?» Taor did not dare to ask anyone about it. For some reason, it became scary to just ask a question about what worried him. «Pharaoh’s daughter? The daughter of some priest who taught her to conduct the mysteries? A child of one of the gods themselves?»

Ujai just shook his head. He did not know, only speculated.

«Pharaoh called her daughter. At first. But she appeared suddenly, already being an adult and… winged. No matter how hard it is to believe it, the wings are alive, they grow from her back».

«Did you check?»

«Yes».

«How?»

«By chance. I touched her as she walked by».

«Has your hand started to dry out since then?» Taor guessed.

«No,» Ujai shook his head sadly. «Here the point is different. The first time I just got a little burned. It was necessary to be more prudent, but what can be done here when she walks nearby, right through the palace… Now no one calls her just a princess anymore. She seemed to have become a ruler herself. As if God came down from heaven to rule alongside the Pharaoh».

«What about Queen Nefertiti? News reached me that not so long ago Akhenaten made her his co-ruler».

«Where do you see her here?» Ujai expressively looked around the empty space.

In some ways, he was right. Taor himself noticed numerous changes in the order of life in the palace. All representatives of the royal family, who had at least some kind of power, disappeared, as if they were deliberately kept under lock and key. The Pharaoh himself, sitting on the throne, seemed just a puppet.

Otherwise Taor would not have thought of interfering in the natural course of someone’s power struggle, much less making inquiries. It’s none of his business. Asking about something like that, he brazenly climbs into other people’s secrets. But Alais… Her face… She seemed not at all a stranger to him. He wanted to know something about her, and what he did not understand himself.

Ujai’s diseased limb should have been a warning to him. Something similar can happen to him if he pokes his nose where he should not.

Taor moved a little away from Ujai and watched his dry hand vibrate slightly under the bandages. What if you take a blade and cut them off his hand? What will he see then?

Taor could hardly resist the temptation to check. After all, he is a warrior. He saw a terrible death, and an unusual infection, and even the living dead in the last war. What he sees under Ujai’s bandages shouldn’t scare him too much after that.

This was the very place in the garden by the pond where Alais performed the ritual with the slaughtered birds. Ujai just reminded him of a bird so withered that it only remained to be buried in the ground. He stopped looking like a living person. Anubis seemed to have forgotten to come for him in time, and the dry shell remained moving to live. But how long is it? The movements of the living corpse became more and more sluggish.

He wanted to say something else to Taor, but his language clearly did not obey. Then Ujai raised his good hand to his mouth and bit his own finger. The blood went slowly, there was little of it, as if it had almost dried up inside the body, but it was enough for him to draw a hieroglyph on the wall. Only one. And, probably, he drew it incorrectly, because there was not enough strength for the clarity of the lines. Taor did not know such a sign. You can’t read it. And Ujai won’t write more. His hand dropped limply.

«Let’s go! I will take you to your chambers». Judging by his condition, much cannot be done for him. It is unlikely that he will last long. But you can do at least something to make him a little easier. Experienced doctors are familiar with drugs that help at least forget, if not relieve pain.

«Leave him alone!» The imperious voice made Taor flinch. He was like steel. You won’t even hear such notes from commanders in war. The very tone made him obey.

Taor gave up his vain attempts to lift the seriously ill man to his feet and turned around. Before him stood the high priest of Aton himself. No security. No accompanying persons. Well, isn’t it amazing.

«He likes to bask in the sun,» Merira nodded at the unfortunate man, as if he were some inanimate object. «After all, the sun is all that we live by now».

«But he’s trying to stay in the shadows,» Taor looked back in bewilderment at Ujai, who was hiding in the shadows, entwined with plants, of a column. The hieroglyph inscribed in blood stood out strangely on it.

«Do you know what this man wanted?

«To touch the burning solar disk and not burn out?» Shrugging his shoulders, suggested the young man.

Merira looked at him like he was a complete idiot.

«Destroy you completely. Do you even recognize him?»

«It’s hard to recognize him, but it’s still him».

«And if he feels good again, he will continue his fight for the first place, and, most likely, he will destroy you, as he intended at the beginning. Do you allow this?»

«Quite. I already had the experience of communicating with him when he was healthy», Taor wanted to turn around again to look at the bloody hieroglyph again, but Merira watched him so closely that it was uncomfortable.

«What kind of person would want to help his worst enemy?»

«The one who sees that he needs a doctor».

«He doesn’t need him.» The high priest avoided looking back. «It’s too late to do anything».

Taor himself was aware of this, but he could not pass by the person whom no one else helps. He could not understand how, in a palace full of servants and slaves, no one was still concerned about the state of the honored guest, who suddenly became ill.

The priest’s hand tugged urgently away.

«Let’s go to!»

«But where!»

«If you want to achieve a high position here at court, you shouldn’t ask too many questions,» Merira said condescendingly.

«But I don’t want to,» Taor admitted honestly.

Merira stopped and looked at him carefully, as if checking to see if there was even a drop of lie in this.

«That’s what I wanted to hear,» he admitted unexpectedly.

«Simplicity!» the high priest led him to a strange place, more like the sanctuary of the old gods, located in the recess of the basement of the palace, far from everyone. «Simplicity is exactly what I’m looking for in a person. I need someone like you. Anyone who is not looking for any benefits specifically for himself. Man is higher than all people».

It seems that somewhere between the pillars, painted with hieroglyphs, huge wings, the size of a man, flapped. Taor gazed there. Nowhere else is there a rustle or movement. He gazed up at the low ceilings, still painted with images of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu.

«This room has not yet been redone properly», Merira led him a little forward. «Tell me, have you ever wondered why a previously little-known god suddenly became the only god of Egypt?»

Taor just shrugged.

«I don’t know much about anything. It is better to ask me about swords, about fighting techniques, about strategy, about war, about how to defend yourself and protect others, about how to lose as few people as possible in battle and at the same time win. This is an area in which I can answer any question, but everything else is beyond my comprehension».

«For example, why people here, in the palace, are ready, without any threat of war, to gnaw each other’s throats in order to make their way a little higher to the sun, that is, to the royal throne…»

«All people have their own desires».

«And they all contradict each other, so you can’t make everyone happy. Someone will still become angry with another, who, in their opinion, received more, and intrigue».

«Perhaps the new god will do something to change this».

«Aton!» Merira seemed genuinely amazed.

«Well yes! After all, the sun equally warms everyone with its rays», – Taor remembered a new image of Aton with the royal ureus on his head and rays extending from him. For some reason, these rays looked more like severed human hands than a source of all the warming heat. «When it rises to dispel the darkness, one can believe that its light brings the same benefit to everyone». And evil desires simply do not remain.

He recalled the dawn over the field of his last battle. Before his rays, all the corpses in the darkness seemed to be the same cesspool. The bodies of companions, eaten by vultures, evoked pity, animals that have no name seemed to crawl right out of the ground and tore the flesh of the still living wounded, and dead enemies, who did not rise more painfully, but looked with empty eyes at the sky, as if beckoning to themselves, demanding only one thing for him to taste their dead flesh. He could hardly resist then. The urge to eat carrion and drink blood was almost unbearable, but the sun rose and it passed.

«Perhaps it’s for the best that the sun god is now the only one,» Taor said earnestly.

Why did the high priest of Aton look at him with slight pity, as a man who was deliberately mistaken?

«Do you already know that the Pharaoh is going to move the capital from Thebes to another city?»

«To Memphis?»

«No, to a city that doesn’t even exist yet, but construction is about to begin», Merira beckoned him with his hand to papyri with some drawings, casually laid out on a low table. «The city that will be named after Aton. And it will not be like all those cities that you have seen so far. Its population will also not be composed exclusively of people». Merira stopped, as if someone had hit him in the mouth.

«That is, the population of the city will not consist only of Egyptians?»

«Probably,» Merira began to choose his words more carefully. «What if you knew that the sun god would make the city and all of Egypt prosperous for everyone, but it would cost the life of someone special, for example, the winner of a recent war, a hero who has no equal… What if you knew that his blood is so dear to the gods that sacrificing it can buy peace and prosperity for centuries. Would you allow yourself to be sacrificed?

«Everyone dies someday», Taor kept looking around, looking for huge wings, but in vain. «Every time I go into battle, I know there’s a better chance that I don’t come back alive. So what? Have I given up even one battle? Only people who are weak in consciousness and scoundrels value life. A worthy person should not be afraid of death. Moreover, death is something that inevitably awaits everyone».

«Alas, not everyone remembers this. Many believe that they will live forever like gods…»

Here they are! Again! He heard the rustle of wings. But you can’t follow them with your eyes.

«If Aton demands my life, I will give it, without regrets, Taor admitted, «just tell me whether you saw the sun god live, right in front of you or near the king’s throne. A living deity with wings, skin glowing with gold, golden eyelashes and hair. To whom, no matter how you, it could have come true, because you are its chief priest».

And silence. Merira was in no hurry to say anything in response.

Taor was still looking around, hoping to spot a winged silhouette somewhere, even though such absent-mindedness was disrespectful to the interlocutor. However, as a mindless warrior, they could forgive him a lot. He often acted ridiculous, but they tried to ignore it.

«Pharaoh ordered to show you special honors», the high priest remembered very aptly. «They say that what you did there, in the deserts, far from Egypt, means a lot to all of us. Before you, others were sent there who did not cope and died. Have you seen their remains there?»

«No,» Taor tried to remember exactly. «Some of the attackers took off military clothing from the corpses and continued to fight in it, obviously to confuse us».

«Savages», stated Merira. «But you better not tell anyone about their antics. Your ill-wishers may decide that you deliberately finished off still living competitors».

«How competitors can be those who are fighting on your side?»

«Trust me, they can always».

Taor wanted to ask again about the golden deity, but he could hardly restrain himself and said nothing. Merira probably heard his first question as well. If the priest wants, he will answer. He cannot know nothing about Alais. But instead of her, he tried to draw the young man’s attention to the scattered drawings on papyrus.

«All those temples of Aton that are being built now in all the cities of Egypt, it seems, are few», he stated. «In Memphis, in Heliopolis, in Fayum, in Hermopolis, in Gemm-Aton, here in Thebes. Throughout the temple for her».

For her!? Taor frowned. Could he have misheard? He could well, given that he was not listening carefully. All this did not bother him much; he wanted to talk about something completely different. Even Ujai, although a little insane, gave out much more information than this secretive priest. Merira tried to talk about many things, but about nothing. He seemed to be waiting for the initiative from Taor himself, trying to push him into something.

«And now this new city, where a temple called «House of Aton» is already being built. It is being built amazingly quickly. We can say that construction is advancing above human strength. The city is growing as if from under the sand, and the plans of other builders and temples for other gods are all destroyed», Merira hesitated a little, as if pondering how much to say now. «The city will be located north of Thebes, it will be called the Horizon of Aton, Akhetaton. And that’s all, the only god of all things will live there forever and begin to accumulate strength in order to manage all the lands from there, both those that we already own and those that we will own. Both Upper and Lower Egypt, united into one, and possessing numerous provinces, as a result, will become too small for the new god, and he will take over the whole world.

«Is it bad?» Taor could not understand whether Merira was offering him some honorary position in an unfinished city or sending him to conquer new territories.

«Everyone who thought it was bad…» Merira hesitated. «You know, I’m not the first high priest of Aton, since this shining god took over all Egypt under his rule, before me there were others. There are records of Tutu, my predecessor…

Merira, looking around nervously, beckoned the young man to follow him and pointed to a chain of inscriptions that streaked one wall. Taor only had time to read the first lines.

«The massacre of the unwanted…» this slightly alerted him, and then he noticed in the center the very hieroglyph that Ujai had recently drawn with blood. He didn’t know how to read it. The hieroglyph stood out clearly among the others, and seemed to erase the meaning of everything.

«What does it mean?» Taor turned to his interlocutor.

«Well, how can I tell you…» Merira was extremely careful, as if the walls themselves could overhear their conversation. «Not everyone liked to abandon old traditions, sacrifice their churches and positions. Different gods gave much more opportunities for different people than if everything belongs to someone alone and only he should be worshiped, to make sacrifices, both bloody and symbolic. Those whose temples were rich from the offerings to Set, Horus, Mut, Osiris and many other gods at first opposed. But she brutally suppresses resistance…»

«He», found the strength to correct Taor, noticing between the columns a new image of Aton with the royal uraeus and rays pulling down like severed human hands.

The priest seemed to have been hit.

«You know, they say that the gods are actually sexless,» he said apologetically.

«I’ve never heard of such a thing.» Taor’s black eyebrows furrowed painfully. «I didn’t want to ask about the gods at all,» he turned to the wall, «but about this symbol».

All you had to do was poke your finger in the middle, where the hieroglyph was located, a little larger in size than all the others, but it was no longer there. He could not crawl away like a scarab. The young man looked in bewilderment at the place where the sign had just been. It seemed that all the hieroglyphs were now sprinkled with something brown, like crushed cloves or caked blood. There is just little light and little air. Taor felt a little dizzy. Then he clearly discerned the flapping of wings in the silence.

«Is there anyone here besides us?»

«Not likely», the high priest said with pressure, and nevertheless looked around warily, as if expecting some witness to follow them. «You probably get bored away from people. You’re used to being with the army all the time».

«I’m not complaining about anything. Since I returned from the war, here in the palace everything has changed a lot, not even the setting, the atmosphere itself. At first it was strange, but now I began to like it here, as if I was finally at home».