Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C. -- Fiction; Historical fiction
What was Amen or Aton to them, as they watched their ashen, granite-hard
soil crack beneath the pitiless shafts of a ruthless sun-god! ’Twas an
ill time to pray to him under any one of his three hundred names.
And so it happened that, at Pharaoh’s command, an Atonite force attacked
the battlemented walls of Amen’s temple in Karnak.
As a result, the ancient temple of Sesostris was utterly destroyed.
Oldest of all the temples within the encircling walls, its cedar columns,
its silver floors, its walls of gold inlaid with malachite and lazuli,
together with its hundreds of gold and silver statues of the kings of
old, all were lost in a conflagration started by the overturning of a
colossal incense-bowl which stood in front of the shadow of the god Min,
outlined in silver in the panels of the sanctuary door.
That night Huy, great High Priest of Amen, lay dead, the poisoned cup
clenched in his hand.
Yet, before he went forth upon his last long journey across the rocky
heights of Duat and the demon-haunted valleys of the Underworld, Huy had
arrayed himself in full regalia and taken his stand before the yellow
curtain which screened the now empty shrine of the great god Amen.
Aloud he cried, “O Ancient One, Primordial God! By the power of thy
Hidden Name, by the Heads of the Demigods that surround thee, hear the
prayer of Huy, thy servant!
“Grant that the line of Ahmes be broken! Grant that no child of Pharaoh
sit upon thy golden throne!
“Let Pharaoh’s name be blotted from remembrance! Let Pharaoh’s _ka_ be
forced to wander among the dunghills of forgotten cities!”
Slowly Huy raised the poisoned cup: “And now, O nameless One, before I go
forth upon the way of trial, a token that thou dost grant my prayer. Give
me a sign, O Holy One, a sign, O Amen, Lord of Lords!”
As if in answer to the High Priest’s cry, there came a sound as of
the shaking of distant sistra and silver cymbals. There followed the
thrumming of many harps and the sound of reed pipes. Suddenly, through
the yellow curtain, there was seen a light which slowly increased in
brightness.
In terror the awe-struck priests surrounding Huy hid their eyes. When
again they dared to open them, they saw that the great curtain had been
rent in two and, below it, stretched at full length, lay the white-robed
figure of Huy, their leader.
In sorrow, Antefy, his successor, commanded his bearers to carry him to
the chariot of Mei, the Atonite, where seven and seventy times seven at
the feet of Pharaoh’s victorious representative, in words at least, he
fell.
The other disheartened ministers of Amen nominally embraced the Aton
creed then and there, or, with Antefy, their new leader, retired to a
self-imposed exile among the arid sands of Nubia far to the south.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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