Kingmaker And The Scribe

Chapter 2

2

“My fang brings death or the divine,” the serpent told them in the time between. “Only providence will reveal which one.”

Egypt

c. 2500 B.C.E.

“Audax, it is time to gather the grain,” Mother tells me. It is a duty often performed by boys such as me. After a breakfast of dates and curdled sheep’s milk, I pick up the scythe and make my way to the field. Cutting the stalks of grain is a task that I have done many times, and today I do it by rote, watching a herd of goats munch their way along the edge as I swing my sharp tool.

“Watch out!” a voice commands.

Startled, I spin to see the flattened head of the asp just before it strikes my n***d leg. The moment stretches and the sun glints on a strange purple cast inside the hooded head. The snake’s eyes are like black wells and I feel their glare tug at my center. This happens slowly, so slowly that I believe I will have an opportunity to flee or perhaps just step to one side. Then time regains its rhythm and a single fang pierces the skin of my calf, pumping a drop or maybe a bowl of poison into my flesh, the fang retracts and the cobra slides past, a second fang spraying death into the dry desert air.

Before the pain can register and I begin the slide into the afterlife, there is another shout and a speared the serpent, pinning it to the ground. Weakly, I turn my head to see a boy, a little older than myself. He is the one who shouted the warning and impaled the creature. Do I know him? He is not familiar like one of my friends in the village but perhaps a visitor I have seen before, coming with his father to trade camels or goods at market.

Then the pain begins, and I writhe like the snake, still alive under the blade of the spear.

“I will help you,” the stranger tells me. “Here, grasp my hand.”

He wraps an arm under my shoulder and lifts. I stand with effort, the edges of my vision glittering like the night stars.

“Hurry,” he tells me. I sink into darkness and know no more.