Prolog: doomed princess

                                    

                                          
Neferren stopped for the first time since fleeing the palace. The desert seemed like a vast sea that swallowed the distant horizon. 
                          
Neferren looked around and looked down. Dust smoke spread tightly under the rocky hills. Through the hiss of the wind, the cries of the riders reached her: "Yalla, Yalla!"
                          
Hanif's hounds, pursuing her from Tzhenu himself, [1] were rapidly approaching.
                          
"Give us peace, damn children of Apep!"[2]
                          
Pressing the dirty roll to her chest, Neferren rushed down the steep slope. Every step burned her bare feet, till the skin on her feet rubbed to the blood.
                          
Her eyes watered so that she could not see the way, and Deshret's landscape was ominously similar.
                          
The sand was everywhere: in the nose, in the mouth, in the lungs. Neferren was breathing hard. Every breath of desert air burned her chest like fire.
                          
Princess enter the Great Deshret in the time of the storm, when every living creature is  hiding in fear.
                          
'Shhhh,' the wind was singing displeased, warning young princes about the dangers waiting ahead.
                          
Only a madman could challenge Ruah Kadim in all his mighty power. Only a damn, dare to seek protection under his deadly whips. 
                          
Neferren was neither cursed nor crazy. By choosing to escape in the desert, she knew, that by tomorrow dawn, she will be dead.
                          
Black as night, long hair flew over the maidens shoulders. The palace dress torn into rags. Every step now was a test, every breath burns the lungs. But Neferren continued to wander through the darkness of sand and dust, against the will of the mighty Shu. Again and again she fell, but forced herself to get up and go.
                          
Only one desperate wish drawn royal breed closer to her doom. 'Save him,' she whispered. This is all about what Neferren prayed to the heavens and all the gods, and spirits of the ancestors.
                          
'O merciful mother, Nate protect this child from harm, cover him from evil and save from anger of the high priests!' Neferren knew, that she could not protect the firstborn from Pharaoh's revenge. Only in the heart of the Deshret her son will find freedom. 
                          
Erra once told her about one special, secret place. He called it «the Temple of million years». So princes run from palace to search for that place, for the sanctuary to her firstborn. 
                          
‚O Ra, please help me!'
                          
As in a response to a pleas, before Neferren appeared a huge column of white stone. It was only few steps away. In the wrong light of golden boat of the mighty Ra appeared her rescue.
                          
Neferren could see the great walls, massive gates, high arches and endless rows of stone forest, covered with hieroglyphs and secret words.
                          
Hardly dealing with the breath, Neferren looked back again. From north to south, smoke crossed the dusty red sand. That was sign of her pursuers. The chain dogs of priests haven't lose the track of runaway in this deadly gloom. They rushed her out of the Tjenu into this madness.
                          
Now she can catch distend shouts and curses of the soldiers. The clatter of hooves and the sound of dozens of metal drifted through the wind, and becoming more and more clear.
                          
'Why you don't leave me along! Damn Treaters you are!' 
                          
Without hesitation Neferren rushed to the sacred place. As white shadow she swept across the wide stone halls, through the symmetrical rows of round columns, whose storage ring were lost in the darkness high above her head.
Princess hurry in the back room of the sanctuary, which was hidden in the depths of the temple.
                          
As she ran, Neferren felt the angry and condemning stares of gods and goddesses that were watching her from the bas-reliefs, from massive columns,  the coated patterns and  the wall paintings. From everywhere they fixed their golden eyes on her.
                          
'They Judged me... Oh please do not judge me, forgive me. Maybe I will be justified at the final judgment and my Ab, my heart, will be light, as the feather of Maat, great and fair?'
                          
The princess tried not to think of the last judgment, but instead to imagine the sanctuary, lost in the depths of the dark temple.
                          
Breathing hard, Neferren flew forward. Her feet barely touched the large polished stone floor .
                          
Finally from the shadows the door appered, covered with paintings, shimmering and sparkling. The door made of pure gold. 
                          
'We are saved!' Princess hastened her steps and than stopped.
                          
Golden Door was locked. Neferren hit the door several times, but it wasn't useful. 'No, no!' she cried In desperation.  
                          
Her screams of horror and pain rushed under the dark vaults.
'Not that ... not that!' Neferren moaned. 
It was the end. There is no hope now. No hope for her, no hope for her child.
Fear, sharp as the papyrus, gripped Neferren. Pain shot through the heart and for the third time in her life, Neferren began to cry.
                          
'Oh, Erra where are you? You promised to come! You promised to save us! Why you not here? Why?'
                          
Life left her battered, bruised and weakened body. She could no longer fight, she could not escape. And where she can possible go? From revenge of the High Priest there is no protection, even in the Kish she could not be in safe.
                          
Now in the dim twinkling twilight of the forgotten temple, Neferren was like a shadow. Like a shu of that proud and beautiful mistress of Kemet and Deshret that she used to be, shu of the princess of the united land, host of the fertile valleys.
                          
Neferren was still breathing but her thought already crossed palace of Duat. Now she is waiting for sentence. She stared at the great hall of the Two Truths, where former neter1 awaiting for her to start the Judge. Her hands rested on the baby. 
                          
The silence of Akers Temple of million years, shooked the sound of many voices. A loud, sonorous echo, as rushing waters of the Nile, rolled through the main hall and reached the Neferren. She waked up once again.
So the followers entered the temple.
                          
'Time is almost gone! We need to hurry up' she can cry later. The main thing now is to save his son. How good, that she picked up an Eye before this mad runaway.
                          
Neferren bustled at the door. Holding the baby in right hand, she held out  a heavy amulet on a long gold chain with left.
                          
The Eye flashed with bright red light  that momentary fadeded away into the gathering dusk. Even the Eye was powerless before the spell of a great Aker. No one will pass to the sanctuary without uttering the sacred words.
                          
She nervously whispered words scribed on golden lines, diligently remembering the meaning and interpretation of sacred symbols. 
                          
From cracked lips of princess escaped hoarse inarticulate sounds, that bore little resemblance to the familiar words. That was the language of long-lost tribe of Tatau.
                          
Neferren in despair again and again furiously repeated strange words, dry and rough as old papyrus. Princes tongue slowly tossed in the mouth.
In this oblique and horizontal lines hardly guessed any symbols.
                          
 "Amenhe ... Amenh ... Rabum Zillitu Anak ..."