City of the Dead Read Free

then spoke to Sokkwi. “How did this happen?”
    He shrugged. “First time on the line.” He worked at something in his teeth with his tongue. “Doesn’t know the angles, I suppose.” Another shrug.
    “What was he doing at the top then?” I searched the work area and the ramp below me again for Mentu. Anger churned my stomach.
    The supervisor sighed and picked at his teeth with a fingernail. “Don’t ask me. I make sure the blocks climb those ramps and settle into place. That is all I do.”
    How had Mentu allowed this disaster? Justice, truth, and divine order—the ma’at —made Egypt great and made a man great. I did not like to see ma’at disturbed.
    On the ramp a woman pushed past the workers, shoving them aside in her haste to reach the top. She gained the flat area where we stood and paused, her breath huffing out in dry gasps. In her hands she held two jars, brimming with enough barley beer to allow theboy to feel fierce anger rather than beg for his own death. The surgeon came behind, readying his saw. The boy had a chance at life if the leg ended in a stump. Allowed to fester, the injury would surely kill him.
    I masked my faintness with my anger and spun away.
    “Mentu!” My yell carried past the lines below me, down into the desert below, perhaps to the quarry beyond. He should never have allowed such an inexperienced boy to place stones. Where had he been this morning when the gangs formed teams?
    The men nearby were silent, but the work down on the plateau continued, heedless of the boy’s pain. The rhythmic ring of chisel on quarry stone punctuated the collective grunts of the quarry men, their chorus drifting across the desert, but Mentu did not answer the call.
    Was he still in his bed? Mentu and I had spent last evening pouring wine and reminiscing late into the night about the days of our youth. Some of them anyway. Always one story never retold.
    Another scream behind me. That woman had best get to pouring the barley beer. I could do nothing more here. I moved through the line of men, noting their nods of approval for the effort I’d made on behalf of one of their own.
    When I reached the base and turned back toward the flattopped basalt-black stone where I conferred with Khons and Ded’e, I saw that another had joined them. My brother.
    I slowed my steps to allow that part of my heart to harden like mud bricks in the sun, then pushed forward.
    They laughed together as I approached, the easy laugh of men comfortable with one another. My older brother leaned against the stone, his arms crossed in front of him. He stood upright when he saw me.
    “Ahmose,” I said with a slight nod. “What brings you to the site?”
    His smile turned to a smirk. “Just wanted to see how the project proceeds.”
    “Hmm.” I focused my attention once more on the plans. The wind grabbed at the edges of the papyrus, and I used a stone cubit rod, thicker than my thumb, to weight it. “The three of us must recalculate stone transfer rates—”
    “Khons seems to believe your changes are going to sink the project,” Ahmose said. He smiled, his perfect teeth gleaming against his dark skin.
    The gods had favored Ahmose with beauty, charm, and a pleasing manner that made him well loved among the court. But I had been blessed with a strong mind and a stronger will. And I was grand vizier.
    I lifted my eyes once more to the pyramid rising in perfect symmetry against the blue sky, and the thousands of men at my command. “The Horizon of Khufu will look down upon your children’s grandchildren, Ahmose,” I said. I leaned over my charts and braced my fingertips on the stone. “When you have long since sailed to the west, still it will stand.”
    He bent beside me, his breath in my ear. “You always did believe you could do anything. Get away with anything.”
    The animosity in his voice stiffened my shoulders.
    “Khons, Ded’e, if you will.” I gestured to the charts. Khons snorted and clomped to my side.