Hat-re the Immortal

by Jamie K. Wilson

In the twenty-fifth year of the great Rameses IX's reign, three years after the Great Flood and only one before the war with the Hittites which so devastated the Two Lands, I, Hat-re-setup, was eaten by a crocodile while poling Pharaoh's hunting barge through a papyrus stand.  Let it be stated that this was not my fault, nor anyone else's; the great lizard slept at the base of the reeds where my pole had found purchase.  Understandably annoyed at having his torpor disturbed, the crocodile had bitten at the pole, jerking both it and me down into the water, giving me only time to regret I would never see La-khun give birth to our child.  

It was a mercifully quick death, though grisly; the lizard wasted no time biting off and swallowing my head.  The rest of my corpse it buried in the sticky mud lining the bottom of the Nile to be eaten at a more convenient time.  And, according to what I had always been taught by the priests of holy Isis, that was the end of me, for my body, my ka, must be intact and properly prepared in order for my soul to enter the Afterlife.

Imagine, then, my surprise when after the quick pain of being beheaded, I found myself being pushed through a dark, wet, and hot channel, headfirst, of course, the only way I could travel at this point.  I could not breathe.  Occasionally the sides contracted, pushing me further down. Then I felt open air at the crown of my head, and then my head was out in it and the light was so brilliant I could not see.  I inhaled and screamed.

"Hah!  Healthy lungs, this one has!  You are blessed with a fine son, Mar-se-hun!  Observe, how the black hair on his head curls as did his grandfather Hat-re-setup's."  Though still blinded, I felt enormous hands whisking me through the air.  I lost control of my bladder.  Laughter boomed all around.

"La-khun, a fine grateful grandson you have! He has pissed all over you!"

Laughter again. I, though terrified, was puzzled. La-khun? Were the priests wrong about the afterlife? Was I hallucinating? If I was, it was a very cold hallucination. My entire body felt wet and cold. But that was a hallucination as well, for I no longer had a body -- yet my bladder had functioned. Was my body back? Or had I grown an entirely new body? What sorcery could this be?

When I was placed on a solid surface, I tried to stand, only to discover that my body -- new or old -- did not obey my instruction as it should.  When I ordered my legs to move, my arm waved about.  When I ordered my back to flex so as to sit upright, my toes wiggled.  I had to suffer the indignity of having soft linen wrapped around and under my most private and precious parts.  My vision began to clear. I first saw pale fuzzy shapes and then more distinct, though still blurry ones.  A woman held me close to her face, cooing and chirping at me as if I were a baby.

"Oh, little blessing of the Nile, what a precious handsome boy you are."  

In my astonishment, I could not breathe.  It was La-khun who held me, or an ogress with her face; La-khun, my precious pearl, to whom I'd been married only long enough to see the Nile flood once.  But her face!  It was wrinkled and weathered, tired and worn.  I gasped.  "W-wife?  La-khun?" I managed to make my uncooperative tongue say.

I heard the shrieking before my head hit the floor and all went black.  Almost it was the end of me again, and more permanently, as you shall see.

********

My darling wife remembered, and told me in her later years:

La-khun feared the priests, else she'd have given the babe to them to raise, for it was assuredly demonspawn, one of Set's evil children.  Had it not spoken to her with her dead husband's voice, and had it not called her by name?  Yes, and now Mar-se, her son Kha-be's wife, swore the baby lectured Kha-be on proper behavior and seemed to accept his meals at Mar-se's breast with more than seemly pleasure.  Had it not been for Kha-be's resistance, Mar-se would have long since abandoned the little devil to the sands of Set.

At the four months he'd been allowed to attain thus far, the babe was walking, practicing shooting a tiny arrow, even arguing proper boating techniques with his son -- her son!  Her son!  She was beginning to believe it herself, that Hat-re was reborn in this demon child!  But it was a trick of the evil spirits of the desert, the same ones that showed a thirsty man shimmering pools that vanished as one approached.  La-khun was far too wise to fall prey to such tricks. "A sharp knife could cut out that lying little demon tongue.  Then perhaps the wicked spirit would flee and I would have a normal grandson."  But La-khun knew that she could no more harm an infant, and especially one of her own blood, than she could cut out her own eyes. She would have to chase out the demon instead.

And this was why she squatted nervously outside her son's hovel on the low sandy banks of the Nile, waiting for Mar-se to bring the child out to her.

The desert sun beat hot upon her head, even in the scant shade provided by the mud-brick wall behind her.  Only a step or so away was a bucket of water Mar-se had drawn for her before going to fetch Hat-re (for so the little demon insisted upon being called, rather than his perfectly acceptable true name of Ari-ka-maten.)  La-khun was too nervous to drink a dipperful.  The family cat swaggered up and sat hopefully at her feet, looking up with arrogant eyes, but La-khun did not feel like petting one of Bastet's beloved.  She jerked and looked at the door as she heard movement.

The wicked little demon-baby stepped out the door, toddling unsteadily on his fat baby-legs.  He reached her feet and bowed, almost losing his balance.  "Gracious and blessed and most beloved wife, it is pleased I am that you come to visit me.  Please accept this as a token of my esteem."  He pressed into her hand a cool stone; she opened it to see a scarab crudely carved of limestone.  "I carved this with my own hands, my way of wishing you a long and healthy life."

"Eh."  La-khun sat a moment in bemusement.  "If what you say is true, you have been granted more than a long life."

"Indeed..  Though I remember nothing of the journey that took me from the mouth of the crocodile to the sweetness between Mar-se's legs."

"As should you not.  Demon child, one is born but once, then consumed by the soul-eaters or admitted to the afterlife by holy Horus."

The fat little baby-face grinned up at her. "No, apparently one may be born twice at least. I make obeisance and offering at the edge of the Nile each evening; the milk that flows from the paps of Isis to nourish the Two Lands must be what brought me back to you, my love."

La-khun snorted, moving back carefully. "Your love! You are a baby, an infant, and an abomination." She raised her head to the heavens. "Oh, that such evil should come upon my son and his wife! Alas, that the gods have visited upon us this twisted and vile demon!"

"Twisted and vile, wife? Never!"

"Oh great Isis, canst thou not spare us from this horror! Mighty Osiris who indeed lived twice, canst thou not fetch the soul of this demon to the afterlife, where it belongs?"

"My point exactly, Osiris, I mean, if you'll but listen --"

"Oh, mourn my family! Oh Bast, have your minions chase forth this horror! Capture its soul like a mouse and eat it! Horus, father of Pharaoh, bringer of fate, put things aright!"

"Oh, by the River! Will you listen --"

"Oh, woe is me! My family will live on nevermore! Oh, mournful day!"

*********

La-khun, after an unsuccessful attempt at shoving the cat toward me (it hissed and ran), collapsed in a heap at my feet. I knelt unsteadily, my fat legs threatening to throw me off-balance, and started whispering to her.

"Your lips are like the finest wine, dark as the river at night, and in the hours of least light your legs admit me into honey."

She raised her head, eyes red from weeping. "You are assuredly a twisted being, unholy one --"

"My loins yearn toward you, and my heart sees no other woman."

"Stop!" La-khun pressed her hands over her ears.  "That song was one my husband made up to sing me long ago, on a sweet hot night when the Nile reflected the moon and the stars."

"And the very stars of the body of Nut were in your eyes as you gazed at me." I gently touched her hand; she flinched away. "Oh, you did not turn from me that night, did you, my love? You swam in the Nile with me to cool our heat, the gentle breezes stirring our passions, and that was the evening we conceived our son, our only child. Why did you never remarry, my love?"

La-khun stared at me.  "Hat-re." She scrambled to her feet, covering her ears. "It is not so, the priests will tell me, it is not so!" And so she fled.

La-khun moved in with our son and daughter-in-law soon afterward, though she resisted my love. I wished only to continue our liaisons, which I remembered so fondly and which we had so few of before my first death.  It was one thing, she told me, to accept an infant as her husband; she would assuredly not have him in her bed.  Our son was impressed as a digger on Pharaoh's tomb.  Though we all knew that to be a worker on the tombs was to face the possibility of being buried with Pharaoh to protect the tomb's secrets, we also knew that it could take thirty years or more to build a tomb, and this Pharaoh was young yet. Besides, Pharaoh paid his workers well, better than any of us could get scraping the mud to grow barley for a landlord.

I grew strong and tall, into a fine figure of a lad. My La-khun was often furious with me when I caressed her aged and withered breasts, though she no longer denied I was Hat-re. And she seemed to grow more approving of my overtures as I grew older. Mar-se proved fecund as a cow and gave birth to numerous squabbling infants, most of whom I carefully avoided.

In time, I too was drafted to work the tombs with my son. We grew close, and soon rose to the status of foremen on our respective crews. Thirty years passed and more, and when Pharaoh died we were still on the crews. Lots were drawn; he and I were both to be honored by accompanying Pharaoh to the afterworld. Long were the laments of Mar-se and La-khun, who admitted at this last moment her love for me, her husband. But the choice of the Gods was made, and I was grateful to have had a second life. We were in the procession that drew Pharaoh's statues to the tomb, and when the bull was sacrificed, my son and I offered up our necks as well, together at the end of a row of men all to be thus honored. A priest stood over us, raising a stone dagger and crying out to the sun. As noon peaked, the dagger was driven into our necks, and for the second time in my existence, I felt my spirit drain from my body. But I had made preparations the year before, too, in case that my second life was again not my last.

******

Which it was not. Again I found myself forced down a wet channel, again unable to breathe, again I burst into light and air and the cries of women.

"Ayya! He resembles his grandfather!" This time, I did not panic when borne through the air. La-khun was in the corner, toothless and drooling over a bowl of pap. I mourned that. Mar-se was holding me. She was still pretty, but the wearing of the years made the corners of her lips droop.

"The second child emerges!"

I looked. Another baby came from the swollen nether lips of my next-mother, red and screaming so hard he could not breathe.

"Ayya!" cried Mar-se. "He resembles my husband, who serves Pharaoh in the afterworld."

The women cleaned and swaddled both of us, and put us gently in a cradle side by side. I looked at the other baby, into the eyes of Kha-be. I grinned at him. "Kha-be, we are alive," I whispered.

Kha-be looked at me with wide eyes and screamed.

******

My son recovered from his shock quickly, though, and we grew up together. Now in my third life, it appeared I was destined to live forever, provided I maintained a pool of grandchildren of my blood. Kha-be had my gift, and as the years passed, a few others of our blood were reborn. My beloved La-khun passed one cold winter eve, and has not been reborn. I suspect she resides with the gods now, and we may never again meet.

Ah, but life is sweet. Soon my son and I will reach our eighteenth year in this life. The Hittites have been driven out of the Lower Kingdom again, and there is chaos in the Valley of the Dead; the priests ignore their duties, and tombs are violated every day, thieves killed in ancient traps every evening. One night soon, Kha-be and I shall strike out for the secret passage I carved in the tomb of Rameses long ago, dig it out of the sand and take for ourselves the gold and art and jewels that were buried there. We have already married young fecund women, and both wives have one son and carry another in their bellies. If we die robbing the tomb, we shall both live on.

What of curses laid upon the tombs? What of the priests and their teachings now? I know they are wrong. I fear not the wrath of god or man. I am Hat-re-Setup, the eternal man, and I need no god to enjoy eternal life.

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