TWO

On this first morning, Usermare awakened in the dark and entered the caves of Himself that lived within. There, embraced in the heavy arms of His fear, He felt near the force of all-that-did-not-move. He lay in a stillness upon His limbs, in a darkness which abhorred the light, in the place where cold chilled all that was warm, and knew awe before the great force of Atum. The First God, Atum, had been able to rise against all that was dark and inert when He ordered the powers of lifelessness to descend into the Land of the Dead. So the living could begin to breathe. Now, too, did Usermare order away from Himself all powers of lifelessness.

Thereby, awake, and able to feel the vigor of His body, Usermare stood in the Sacred Pool whose waters were as calm as the balance of Maat (even as the pool was named the Eye of Maat) and prepared to adore the sun at its rising, the pool spreading out before Him to the East. There, Usermare waited for the golden face of the sun to rise out of the water, aflame from the fires of the Duad.

For each morning of the five days of preparation before the five days of this Festival would commence, He had arisen out of the same darkness to bathe in the dawn, and had waited for the shoulders and limbs of the God to come up behind the crown of fire, even as the head of Ra lifted above the horizon.

Each of these five mornings, He had bathed in the dawn, and when He was done, had stood in the silver light, the last of the Kings who had come before Him, and the first of the Kings to follow, and knew the sun could not rise in the East on this first day of the Festival without His consent. So, His breathing was troubled as He stared at the Eastern sky. For when the fires of the Duad showed on the dark horizon, then He could feel Himself pass through the ages of the Pharaohs, and all the dead Kings stirred, and He saw the first day of creation and knew how the First Hill rose from the waters when there had been no land, even as that First Hill could now be seen forever in the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

Usermare contemplated the millions of men and the infinity of stones which had been moved, and lo! all had the same thought as the Pharaoh Khufu: A pyramid as large as the First Hill must be built. Now, all the temples of Egypt were blessed by a handful of earth from the ground near the Great Pyramid, laid in their foundations with the blood of a ram, and Usermare held His breath as the blood-red head of Ra was crowned upon the horizon, and light gave the first of its warmth to the silver water and all the birds speaking to the Gods. Usermare saw the sun rise as on the first day of creation, and Atum was the name given to Ra for that first light of the sun before men had been born to see it. Then, Usermare closed His eyes as the sun rose in its revealing and showed so red on the horizon that He knew His own warmth, and the Pharaoh passed from the Good God Who had awakened, to the Great God Who stood in the waters of the Sacred Pool, and He spoke His own name to the rising sun and said, “I am life to the Horus, and King to the Two Ladies. I am the Adored of She Who is the Cobra of Lower Egypt, and the Beloved of the One Who is the Vulture of Upper Egypt. I am the Horus of Gold. I am He who belongs to the Sedge and the Bee. I am the Son of Ra!” And He knew the blood of the first Pharaohs in all His limbs, and what belonged to Menes was in His arms, and the power of Namer was in His legs, while Khufu the Great lived in His throat, even as Unas, Who could devour many Gods in the Land of the Dead, took up a place in His heart. He said a verse to Unas.

Standing in the pool, the warmth of the sun upon His breast like the fires of Kadesh upon His heart, He said to Himself the names of each of the Gods Who came from Atum, beginning with Shu and Tefnut Who were the children of Atum, and the parents of Ra, and that was so because Ra was the grandson of Atum even though Ra was Atum. It was true. The God begets the God Who will be His father. For the Gods live in the time that has passed, and the time that is to come.

So did Usermare stand in the great gold of the sun that lifted free of the horizon, and He contemplated the reflection of its fires which hovered like an Isle of flames in the Eye of Maat. And Usermare-Setpenere thought of the small pyramid of gold on top of the great obelisk of Hat-shep-sut in the Temple at Karnak and that gleamed like a drop of the golden seed of Atum which gave birth to the First Hill.

It was then that a bird flew between Him and the sun, and Usermare-Setpenere remembered the hour when the palanquin fell. The whisper of a breeze came to Him across the stillness of the Eye of Maat. The fire in the isle of flames quivered. So, then, did He also think of the stillness of the river in the year, thirty-five years ago, when He first ascended the throne. The water in that year had been low.

Now in the Thirty-Fifth Year of His Reign, the Nile was full and the abatement of the waters had begun. Today, the first day of the Godly Triumph, was the first day of the first month of the Season of Coming Forth, and all of the flood was risen and the land sat in the communions of the high water. The birds were quiet. The flood was in. The pure waters were long in, all the young waters that came from the sweat of the hands of Osiris and the tears of Isis, and all the liquids that had run from His dead body to carry away the putrefactions of the land. Usermare stood in the sweet heat of the early rising of the sun and a warmth was within His head and within His chest, and His arms extended to the golden heat in the red heart of the sun, and He meditated on its radiance.

“I came,” said Usermare-Setpenere across the water of the Eye of Maat, His words lifting into the breath of the birds, “I came to My throne as Horus, and on My death I join Osiris. I will become Osiris. Each Ka of My Fourteen will go to each of the fourteen parts of the body of Osiris, and I will live in Him,” and the breath of Usermare-Setpenere came with less weight and He knew less fear of death, and stepped out of the water.

The Washer of the Pharaoh and the Superintendent of the Clothes of the King came forward and dried Him with linens, and He left the pool and passed through His gardens. By the sycamores and date-palms, the mulberries, the persias, the fig trees, by the tamarisks and pomegranates, He walked in the dawn. And the smell of smoke was everywhere from the fires of the night before. Through all of the five holy days of preparation to make ready for the Godly Triumph that would commence today for five days to come, so had the Lighting of the Flame taken place, and through every village and city of the Two-Lands, at every crossing of every avenue in Thebes, and before many a shop and home, had torches been lit for the five days of the year that would be like no other festival from the Thirty-Five Years of His Reign.

Now, Usermare walked through the Court of the Great Ones, and the sun came high enough to shine on the courtyard, and all silver left the face of the marble and it was white, and Usermare approached the steps of the Hall of King Unas that He had built in this last year with stones from the mortuary of Seti and Thutmose the Great, and each of these new walls caused a terrible stirring of His bowels as if the Ka of the stones had been disturbed.

He stood on the steps before the Great Door of the Hall of King Unas and it opened and a priest came forward from the depth of an interior which was as dark as the night, and the priest spoke.

“His Majesty Horus enters, His Majesty Horus, Strong Bull, Beloved of Maat.” Now the priest kissed the left foot of Ramses the Second for Amon, and the right foot for Ra, then he bowed seven times for Geb and Nut and Isis and Osiris and Set and Nephthys and for Horus the brother, and the priest said: “He is Ra, Strong in Truth and Chosen of Ra. He is the Son of Ra. He is Ra-meses the Beloved of Amon. He is Horus. He is the throne of the Two-Countries. He sits in His Double-Throne among men while Ra, His Father, sits in the heavens.”

The sun was lifting up the steps even as Usermare listened to this greeting. From the depths, from the dark interior of the Hall of King Unas came a column of light as the sun rose high enough to shine through the square hole in the center of the roof. Through the open door, the light could be seen and Usermare was blinded by the radiance of Ra and bowed His head before the Great Mouth of Gold.

“He is,” said the priest, “the beautiful Silver Hawk of the Two-Lands, and with His wings gives shade to mankind. Horus and Set live in the balance of His wings. Amon said, ‘I made Him. I seeded the truth in its place.’ O Great Pharaoh, at the sound of Your name, gold comes out of the mountains. Your name is famous in all countries. All know of the victories Your arms have won. King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Great Pharaoh Who is strong in truth and has come from the loins of Ra, Lord of Crowns, You are our Horus Who is Ramses the Beloved of Amon.”

He passed through the door, and His strength quivered through the room, and He knew all who saw Him would tremble. The Monarch Who could support the Double-Crown of Egypt entered the Throne Room, and it was a great room, fifty long steps by thirty. Before He could even see, the odor of incense also greeted Him, and He breathed it deep.