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Authors: Jonathan Stroud
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from magical attack, give him extraordinary personal allure (which possibly explained all those wives cluttering up the place) and allow him to understand the language of birds and animals. Not bad, in short, though the last one isn’t half as useful as you might expect, since when all’s said and done the language of the beasts tends to revolve around: (a) the endless hunt for food, (b) finding a warm bush to sleep in of an evening, and (c) the sporadic satisfaction of certain glands.* Elements such as nobility, humour and poetry of the soul are conspicuously lacking. You have to come to middle-ranking djinn for them. * Many would argue that the language of humankind boils down to this too.
7 It was the guise I’d worn when I was spear-bearer to Gilgamesh, two thousand years before: a tall, beautiful young man, smooth-skinned and almond-eyed. He wore a long wrapped skirt, necklaces of amethyst on his breast and ringlets in his hair, and had about him an air of wistful grace that contrasted pungently with the foul detritus of the kitchen yard. I often used this form in such circumstances. It made me feel better somehow.
8 Solomon’s edicts dictated that ordinary human shapes were maintained at all times outside the palace walls. Animals were forbidden, likewise mythic beasts; grotesque deformities were out too, which was a shame. The idea was to prevent the common people being startled by repulsive sights – such as Beyzer taking a stroll with his limbs on back to front. Or, admittedly, yours truly forgetfully popping out to buy some figs in the guise of a rotting corpse, thus causing the great Fruit Market Terror, fifteen deaths in the associated stampede, and the destruction of half the commercial district. Got my figs dirt cheap, mind, so it wasn’t all bad.
7
H is name 1 was Khaba, and whatever else he might have been, he was certainly a formidable magician. In origin, perhaps, he was a child of Upper Egypt, the quick-witted son of some peasant farmer toiling in the black mud of the Nile. Then (for this is the way it had worked for centuries) the priests of Ra would have chanced upon him and taken him away to their granite-walled stronghold at Karnak, where quick-witted youths grew up in smoke and darkness, and were taught the twinned arts of magic and amassing power. For a thousand years and more, these priests had shared with the pharaohs control of Egypt, sometimes vying with them, sometimes supporting them; and in the days of the nation’s glory Khaba would doubtless have remained there, and by plot or poison worked his way close to the pinnacles of Egyptian rule. But the throne of Thebes was old and battered now, and a greater light shone in Jerusalem. With ambition gnawing in his belly, Khaba had learned what he could from his tutors, then travelled east to seek employment at the court of Solomon.
Perhaps he had been here many years. But he carried the odour of the Karnak temples still. Even now, as he clambered to the hilltop and stood regarding us in the brightness of the noonday sun, there was something of the crypt about him.
Up until that moment I’d only seen him in the summoning room of his tower, a place of darkness where I’d been in too much pain to assess him properly. But now I saw that his skin had a faint grey cast that spoke of windowless sanctuaries underground, while his eyes were large and roundish, like those of cavern fishes circling in the dark. 2 Below each eye a thin, deep weal descended almost vertically across his cheek towards his chin; whether these marks were natural, or had been caused by some desperate slave, was a matter for speculation.
In short, Khaba wasn’t much of a looker. A cadaver would have crossed the street to avoid him.
As with all the strongest magicians, his dress was simple. His chest was bare, his skirt plainly wrapped and unadorned. A long, leather-handled whip of many cords swung from a bone hook at his belt; about his neck, suspended on a loop of
7 It was the guise I’d worn when I was spear-bearer to Gilgamesh, two thousand years before: a tall, beautiful young man, smooth-skinned and almond-eyed. He wore a long wrapped skirt, necklaces of amethyst on his breast and ringlets in his hair, and had about him an air of wistful grace that contrasted pungently with the foul detritus of the kitchen yard. I often used this form in such circumstances. It made me feel better somehow.
8 Solomon’s edicts dictated that ordinary human shapes were maintained at all times outside the palace walls. Animals were forbidden, likewise mythic beasts; grotesque deformities were out too, which was a shame. The idea was to prevent the common people being startled by repulsive sights – such as Beyzer taking a stroll with his limbs on back to front. Or, admittedly, yours truly forgetfully popping out to buy some figs in the guise of a rotting corpse, thus causing the great Fruit Market Terror, fifteen deaths in the associated stampede, and the destruction of half the commercial district. Got my figs dirt cheap, mind, so it wasn’t all bad.
7
H is name 1 was Khaba, and whatever else he might have been, he was certainly a formidable magician. In origin, perhaps, he was a child of Upper Egypt, the quick-witted son of some peasant farmer toiling in the black mud of the Nile. Then (for this is the way it had worked for centuries) the priests of Ra would have chanced upon him and taken him away to their granite-walled stronghold at Karnak, where quick-witted youths grew up in smoke and darkness, and were taught the twinned arts of magic and amassing power. For a thousand years and more, these priests had shared with the pharaohs control of Egypt, sometimes vying with them, sometimes supporting them; and in the days of the nation’s glory Khaba would doubtless have remained there, and by plot or poison worked his way close to the pinnacles of Egyptian rule. But the throne of Thebes was old and battered now, and a greater light shone in Jerusalem. With ambition gnawing in his belly, Khaba had learned what he could from his tutors, then travelled east to seek employment at the court of Solomon.
Perhaps he had been here many years. But he carried the odour of the Karnak temples still. Even now, as he clambered to the hilltop and stood regarding us in the brightness of the noonday sun, there was something of the crypt about him.
Up until that moment I’d only seen him in the summoning room of his tower, a place of darkness where I’d been in too much pain to assess him properly. But now I saw that his skin had a faint grey cast that spoke of windowless sanctuaries underground, while his eyes were large and roundish, like those of cavern fishes circling in the dark. 2 Below each eye a thin, deep weal descended almost vertically across his cheek towards his chin; whether these marks were natural, or had been caused by some desperate slave, was a matter for speculation.
In short, Khaba wasn’t much of a looker. A cadaver would have crossed the street to avoid him.
As with all the strongest magicians, his dress was simple. His chest was bare, his skirt plainly wrapped and unadorned. A long, leather-handled whip of many cords swung from a bone hook at his belt; about his neck, suspended on a loop of
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