The Tale of Het-Hur by Caprice
I bear the name of my mothers, of all those before me who were midwife, herbalist and seer to our tribe. We lived between the great sands and the river of life. Food and shelter were plentiful. We prospered: traded with others along the river, exchanged cloth for herbs, unguents for fish, fruit for vegetables. Babes were born, the elders made way for the next generation. Life moved at its own pace.
Until the night that turned to day, when a false sun shone down upon us, when a great wind uprooted our homes and drove many to run in fear. One did not run - Neb, ever a curious, wilful boy, from the day I delivered his mother of him did he walk his own path. So it was that night he went toward the false sun, the last time Neb walked the earth - of his own will.
Days later Neb returned, emerging from the pointed mound that had appeared that fateful night. The body of Neb walked among us but it was not Neb who spoke such forceful words, commanding us to do his bidding. It was not Neb who struck down those who baulked, who slew his father, uncles, sister. It was not Neb’s eyes which flashed like the sun. It was no longer Neb.
He declared himself Ra, taking our sun god’s name, making himself our master. He moved among us, healing the sick and infirm with a touch of his hand. He offered riches beyond our experience: cloth of gold, lighter than a spider’s web; food of unimaginable sweetness; and bounty enough to feed all the tribes of the mighty river. At first he asked for nought in exchange for these riches, but soon, day by day he would ask one then another to enter the Great Mound, that which he called home, there to serve his pleasure and to ensure the tribe continued to receive his gifts.
Always did he take the young, strong and beautiful; never were they seen again by the tribe. Those of us left outside the Great Mound grew uneasy; our lives were disarrayed by this intruder. Many looked to me, as healer -seer they believed I would know the truth of he who would claim the name of our god.
Desperate to provide guidance for our people, I ate the flower of the blue lotus plant and entered the place where true-dreams lay. I saw great change, wrought by this evil come amongst us. I saw much suffering, toil of the people to serve the False Sun, but also great accomplishments: cities, temples, many pointed mounds, all built for his glory, on this and many other lands across the heavens. And, at the last, I saw…
When I left the seeing-place he was there before me, evil encased in a young man’s body.
‘You are loved by these folk, Het-Hur’, he said, appearing puzzled by such a notion. ‘We shall take your vessel for our queen. Be cheered, for you shall live for all eternity.’
I did not want eternity. I wished to walk the fields of Elysium when my time on the earth had run its course. But he rendered my body to a sleep-like state and took me within the great mound.
Inside its walls of gold were great wonders, and horrible scaled beasts watched me with hunger in their glowing eyes. Truly, these were the soul-eaters, come from the underworld, slavering to devour me.
The pretender took me to a chamber of sumptuous wealth where the monsters laid bare my body and held me down on a bier as soft as clouds. I expected the boy-god to take his pleasure but he stood apart, dispassionate, as a monster lay over me; its foul breath churned my stomach, its rough hide scored my flesh. Then it opened its mouth and revealed the devil inside. My screams forced themselves past the sleep-fog in my head. They availed me not. The devil emerged from the monster’s mouth, eyes red as a desert sunset. Half-snake, half-lizard, it flew into my mouth: kept open by the attendant monsters. It scratched its way past my tongue, then with shocking pain, pierced my throat. I struggled against this strange rape but my captors continued to hold me. The monster reared up over my body and was immediately set upon by its fellows. They hacked it to pieces with long knives. Its blood was green and greatly spilled. All the time, the Pretender watched, silent.
A strange sensation overcame me. My limbs felt disconnected; I could feel my senses shutting down, withdrawing until I floated as if in a thick fog. My body rose from the bed but to my horror, I was not commanding it. It knelt before the False Sun, words of fealty that were not mine issued from my mouth. Ra was greatly pleased.
‘We shall call you Hathor - First Daughter.’ He smiled. ‘Is it not as We promised? Do you feel the sensations of light and air playing upon your skin? Do you feel alive?’
‘Yes.’ My mouth uttered the word but the voice - low and echoing - was not mine. ‘I feel… everything…’ My hands caressed my naked flesh, rubbed my breasts, dipped into my womanhood. ‘Ahh!’ Pleasure rippled through me but I experienced it from afar, as if through a veil. I could do nothing to stop that which was now inside me. I screamed and cursed, but the cries never reached my lips.
‘This body is fertile, Great Lord. We shall bear many children and We shall build you an army.’ The beast - Hathor - rose and received the False Sun’s blessing.
‘Go forth and choose the best vessels from the human stock, one for each of your kind. When they are rehoused then We shall begin to create Our empire.’
I was powerless. Locked in silence. I watched the beast, this Hathor, walk among the villagers; my friends, my family, those for whom I had cared, who trusted me, and using my voice she cajoled the young, strong and fair to join her in the Great Mound.
I cried and fought to exhaustion as I watched one by one be taken by the monsters, the beasts within inserted into my sister, my cousin, my friend. The pile of slaughtered monsters grew until there were no more. In their place stood those I knew, each bound in hideous torment by the enemies within.
The False Sun wasted no time. Those of the village not selected were put to work, supplying the beasts with food and labour. The strong were commanded to carve a great monument to the False Sun: a huge lion’s body bearing the head of the self-declared god Ra.
He moved to the next village down river. There he slaughtered the old and frail, kept the rest for his workers. Some were selected to become as I - a vessel for the beasts - for there was no shortage of them now. The False Sun employed his hideous mating upon the beast Hathor and bred many hand-counts of children. In the dark, when the beasts were sated, Neb and I held each other, and wept.
The passage of time was difficult to track. Bound in the prison of my own mind I was helpless witness to the changes around me. Old friends fell - to harsh labour or the lust or rage of the beasts. Babes I had birthed grew and were pressed into servitude, the most comely taken by Ra for his personal slaves.
Years passed. The great statue was completed. In celebration Ra declared the beast Hathor to be his Queen, his daughter-wife, first above all other beasts who roamed our lands and stole our bodies. He commanded an even greater monument be built: a resting place for the Great Mound. Such a thing had never been created before. The people of the mighty river toiled ceaselessly in its creation.
Many of my people weakened and died, but the ranks of workers, slaves and hosts increased as Ra expanded his reach along the river. Dark skinned people were brought from upstream, other exotic races from unknown lands joined my people in their toil.
My beast did not toil. She reclined in ever-increasing luxury, surrounded by the wealth captured by Ra in far-off lands. She took her pleasure with whomever she desired. As those I had known and loved aged and fell, at least I was spared the torment of seeing their faces on the bed-sheet next to me. Neb was rarely seen; the False Sun craved the company of the young and only visited the chamber of Hathor to procure another batch of offspring. Jaffa, he called them, named at one time for the most recent village to fall to his warriors.
I did not sit quietly however, while the beast used my body. She may have power over my limbs but she could not infect my soul. Whilst she could torment me, abusing the trust my people had in me, I could whisper to her - a never-ceasing litany. At first all I could say was filled with hate, but hate alone cannot sustain one’s life and eventually reason replaced hate with cunning. When the beast slumbered, I could whisper a few words to the one lying next to me. In tiny snatches I began to learn the fate of my tribe, and all humans caught in the beasts’ web.
Then one day, when the Hathor beast was striking out in fury, torturing a hapless servant, I spoke to her, quiet, insistent words. If she killed the boy it would take time to train another to her exacting standards, a tedious task and her time could be better spent. Exulting, I watched Hathor stay her hand, satisfied with kicking the boy from the room.
I kept my pleasure well hidden. In tiny victories I found I could have some measure of control - not great, but enough to birth hope.
As the resting place of the Great Mound grew, I found another chance to help my people. Daily, many were injured or killed shifting the giant stones used to build the structure, this pyramid of Ra’s. Railing in frustration at delays caused by inconsiderate deaths, Hathor actually paused and listened when I suggested it was the workers’ ignorance that contributed to the accidents, that my people survived to a much greater age and therefore produced more labour because they passed on their skills, advice written in the very stone they moved.
If others brought from the far lands were taught our language, I murmured to her, they would learn our skills and be of greater use to the Great Lord Ra.
My delight was a life spark. When Hathor presented ‘her’ idea to Ra he commanded it as his law and those remaining of my village were tasked with teaching our symbols to the other workers. Knowledge spread, less workers died and the second Mound grew rapidly.
I had quickly come to realise the beasts had no interest in humans other than what we could provide for them. They chose not to learn our symbols, confident that such primitive scratchings were beneath them. How easy it was then for me to slip one or two extra words into the commands that were taken down in the etchings of the scribes: words of power that would be recognised by my loved one’s descendants and spread among the people.
As the Mound inched toward the stars, so did the idea that the great Lord Ra might be false: that the Queen Hathor might be deceiving those she claimed to love; that the latterly anointed gods Set, Osiris, Anubis and Heru’ur might not be anything other than evil.
Such simple, potent things are words.
When the pyramid mound was complete and the workers expected to receive the rewards they had been promised, imagine the discontent when told their reward was to build a great city, filled with golden temples, all dedicated to idolisation of their Immortal God Ra. Such construction would take lifetimes to achieve.
The people began to speak out; it was not fair, they said. Their god asked too much of them. They had done his bidding, now they wished to return to their old lives. Perhaps it was true: he was not their real god.
Ra was greatly angered. How could his slaves say such things? Who could spread lies like that? One young child told him it was written on the very stone of the new Mound, that each block in the pyramid bore the words of truth - carved in the symbols of my village.
Incandescent with rage, Ra turned on Hathor. It was her fault; was she so weak that she had succumbed to the rebellious mutterings of her human vessel? It must be so. He lashed out at us with his jewel of power, causing us much pain. But the agony was bearable in the face of Hathor’s grovelling pleas for mercy. With the workers refusing to work, and dissent spreading, Ra declared he would make an example of his queen.
In front of all the subordinate beasts he punished Hathor to the point of death. I screamed alongside her - not in despair but in joy, for surely the death so long denied me would now come and I would join my loved ones in the Elysium Field.
But the False Sun had one final torment. He brought forth a golden box and sealed us, alive and in agony, within it.
Eventually pain faded. Time passed. We slept long. Sometimes I found I could wake while Hathor slept. I could even control my body. I touched the gold lining of our coffin, surely that is what it was. Sealed alive, and somehow kept living, breathing, not hungering or thirsting, I tried to die - slashed at my skin with Hathor’s sharpened nails until blood flowed and darkness came, but always we would wake again, healed - alive.
Then one day we touched a spot on our box and the lid parted. Overjoyed we leapt out - into consuming darkness, the only light coming from within the box. Stone walls stood close about. There was no exit. Ra had buried us, a coffin within a tomb.
To my surprise Hathor did not despair. She returned to her slumber, confident she would one day be forgiven and returned to her rightful status.
So here I remain, free to walk the confines of my tomb while the beast within sleeps. I write my story here on the walls.
Beware, all humans, the snakes who would take your body for their own.
Beware their deceptions.
They are not gods. They are as mortal as us. They hunger, fear and lust. They are the great evil.
And yet, I do not despair.
I am reminded of the vision I was given, so long ago when the beasts first arrived.
I repeat it here, for it has sustained my soul over the many years of my captivity.
Eyes of earth
Eyes of sky
Two come forth
The false sun blazes
And dies
My people shall ever
Be free
I am Het-Hur.
Hear my tale.
oOo
Silence hung thick.
The office, buried in its own stone labyrinth, was quiet as the story of a woman lost in time and space resonated in the hearts of the four sitting around the desk.
The final words rang in his ears; the translation of the script carved in the walls of the tomb burned on his screen.
He glanced at Teal'c - grave and sombre with respect; at Sam - eyes filled with tears of empathy.
Finally, Daniel looked at Jack - saw compassion and anger that mirrored his own. Jack met his gaze and smiled. Fierce determination was writ plainly on his face. It reached out and fuelled a spark of hope in Daniel’s soul.
Finis