Chronicle 43, Chronicle 44: RetroStar Chronicles, #2

By R.D. Ginther

Chronicle 43 began with Wally still analyzing the Atlanteans and their aim to hijack and exploit the civilizations that the Red Star recreated. What really was the delay? Wally could only speculate. In the meanwhile Zenobia had taken quite an interest in Yosef again but this time this interest is coming from a genuine source of care. Even Potiphar was interested in hearing how Yosef was faring in the prison. Zenobia  decided to make a bold move to right her wrongs and with Assah by her side, they travelled by boat to some amazing cities. To their surprise, they encountered cities that were judged and destroyed and rightfully so.  Prince Daedalus from one of those cities struggled to keep his lineage alive and barely. Zenobia and Assah happened to meet some very curious sand ramblers, who happened to be familiar with Yosef. The scene was switched to Judah and his affair with his daughter-in-law Tamar. Just like the prodigal son who splurged and lost everything in the end, so did Judah, who almost lost his life in the process.

 

In Chronicle 44, the saga continues but this time with Judah fighting for his life. Fortunately for him his life was about to turn around but with some unforeseen helpers who were on his way. In the meanwhile, Zenobia and Assah with their sand ramblers ambled their way and discovered Judah. It was at this point that the companions split up and for good reasons too.  Another character comes into this story and that is of Asenath the priest's Lord Peternath's daughter. After his passing, Asenath found herself fighting for her freedom with the same spirit as Anne, Pikkard's niece, feisty and brave at the same time. She encountered some strange vases which changed her life forever and possible held the key to Earth II's survival in the upcoming battle with OP. But who will listen to her? To her dismay, Asenath finds herself in one predicament after another but thankfully there was a sweet pot at the end of the rainbow for her. Yosef's interpreted the Baker's and Cupbear's dream with the hope that it would secure his freedom out of prison but to his dismay that did not happen. Nevertheless FC in His perfect timing came to his rescue and so the saga continues…

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A.Edwards
• Release date: Aug 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201721817

Book preview

CHRONICLE 43

ANNO STELLAE 5927

1    Rising Waters

T heir leader must be on the way out! Wally decided after the anticipated move of the Atlanteans to conquer Atlantis II did not materialize.

That had to be the reason for the Atlanteans’ seeming postponement of  their replay of  D-Day. 

So dependent on their rulers, the Atlanteans would do nothing more until she either recovered or expired and a new leader took her place.

Well, good riddance to her!  he thought.  "After how she treated Hantsbo and no doubt many others of the human race, she was due a long retirement! 

But what if her replacement was just as ruthless as she was in the records?  Given their knowledge of genetics,  it was just possible she would commandeer another body with her implacable, grasping spirit—and live another couple thousand or so years!  Horrors!

Well, whatever was happening on the throne, the Atlantean time-table was seemingly stalled for the time being.  That would give him needed time, hopefully  to come up with the means to push these sophisticated blood-suckers back into the stellar seas where they might find another planet to occupy and leave Earth alone!

Meanwhile, like a great, irresistible river such as Mizraim’s Ioteru that never ceased pushing this way and that,  as the looming Atlantean threat to Earth ebbed, events boded ill for the future prospects of  Khian’s throne, involving Wally to even greater degree. 

"The Ioteru is divine, a ward of heaven; the gods would never

trust humankind with such mighty  waters. 

—Mizraimite proverb"

Elektra,  the ruling Atlantean,  wasn’t the only dominate female who was ailing and needed a thorough rehabilitation.

Months passed before Zenobia regained the health of  both  mind  and  body.  From  the Ioteru's initial Inundation in the spring and the appearance of green water,  to a spate of reddish water two months later,  and the final rising  of the River again two months later in autumn, Potiphar's wife showed improvements that delighted her faithful Assah and mystified her husband.

Work-crews  were  busily  planting  the  fields  and  gardens  for  the following  spring  harvests of barley and zarah and wheat when she began to walk from the house, supported by Assah, to watch the labor going on. 

She seemed to catch a new vigor as she breathed in the outer air after  her long  seclusion.  Ramoseh  would often come and tell her of new projects or how the work was proceeding.  Zenobia would make comments as though  everything  he said  was  of great interest  to  her.

Assah  wondered,  however,  if  she were not listening and answering to Ramoseh because she saw so much of  Yosef  and  his Most High God in him.

It came as a confirmation to Assah when Zenobia called Ramoseh, sending him on an errand for her now that the busy seedtime was over.

Zenobia knew Ramoseh could be called from the fields, leaving a man in his place.  There was only clearing of irrigation canals and weeding pending since all the  fields  had  been sown and traditional Seed Festivals spread throughout Mizraim. 

Ramoseh departed from the house and struggled  through  tipsy, celebrating crowds  to  the  prison  of Potiphar.

He returned late in the day with welcome news of Yosef for Lady Zenobia.

The Invisible  God continues to prosper my master in prison! he exclaimed, unaware of  his slighting of Lord Potiphar.  The warden has put all things under his charge.

Zenobia in turn took the news to Potiphar,  who was amazed  to  see  her  speak sanely  and evenly,  without tears or hysterics,  as she related how Yosef had reorganized the prison and made it highly productive. 

Potiphar was not  very  interested  in  hearing the details  (women,  he thought,  were too much taken with domestic facts),  but he listened to it all to humor her.

Zenobia  herself  was  happy  with  the  news  Ramoseh  had brought.  His diffidence did not dampen her spirits at all.  She probably expected the one who had tried so hard to kill Yosef and been humiliated every attempt he made, would not be in the frame of mind to be enthusiastic at the news of Yosef’s rising to eminence in the prison.

She  left  Potiphar and went back to her apartments to tell Assah and mull over the story for many hours.  To Zenobia it  was  another  sign  of  the greatness  and majesty and steadfast love of Yosef’s Most High God,  while the pompous gods of Mizraim were, in stark contrast, left sterile and lacking as cross-mated geese. 

She thought how the priests and wizards would not have done it Yosef's way at all, seeking the Most High God’s counsel first and then doing his best with his mind and body and strength to accomplish the tasks he had to reorganize and better the conditions of his fellow prisoners.

To find out what steps they should take in any important matter,  Mizraimites  all dropped red or black ink in divining cups or  traced  Destiny in  messy  entrails  and  livers  of  animals.  The signs were often very conflicting if more than one wizard (or  ink  spot)  was  consulted.  How  much better  was  Yosef's  way!  she thought.  His God could communicate directly when understanding or direction was needed and no entrails and livers of sacrificed animals were needed. 

Curious  to know more,  she waited and then sent Ramoseh out again.  When her messenger dove returned with more news, Potiphar waited for her  to  come  to  him,  no  longer  merely  indulgent  but interested.  There had been so much bad news of late about the country, it did him good to hear of Yosef’s accomplishments.

The donkey or rat-tailed  Khian had reason to be upset, he knew.  The traditional royal seat of the city of Machitha,  with an immense palace of plastered and painted  brick  that gave  the  city  its  name,  The  White Wall, or White House, had been lost to the Ibbathans.  That was a major set-back!  Machitha was the first capital of the United Kingdoms;  there the double throne was first set by Narmer, after the Lotus King of the Upper Kingdom had fought and decapitated the Papyrus King of the Lower. 

Wearing the two crowns in one,  the white crown of the south and the red of the north, Narmer built Machitha's Per-aa (or Great White House of Machitha).  To Ibbathans and Hyksos alike, Machitha and all its associations with sovereign power was Mizraim; whoever held it held the heart and soul of the realm.  Losing Machitha,  Khian  forfeited  the  last shred of his own throne's legitimacy.

Seed Festival or not,  the enemy was now at the gates of the Delta,  rising up  against  Khian's  last strongholds like the waters of Ioteru on the stepped stele that stood at the delta to measure yearly inundations. 

Heads of generals, not to mention those of  chief officials—the Grand Taty,  Masgeh and Opeh—had  to roll in Khian's court to account for the terrible loss.

With the distinct possibility that Nathasta  would  be  next  to  join  Ibbatha against  him,  a  cornered Khian had sunk into a dangerous and desperate frame of mind.

Potiphar knew that only the relative  success  of  his  latest  trip  to Nubian Kush and the capture of some taxes and temple treasure had saved his own life.  Now the Per-aa could not let his ire fall on him, lest he have no commander of any stature to call up in the final thrust of the Ibbathans on his capital—an eventuality everyone knew was imminent. 

Soon after Machitha's fall, all of Avaris was thrown in an uproar over yet a further sign of judgment that eclipsed Khian's prospects.

The  House of Eternity he had worked to complete on the western side of the River,  built of the finest red granite,  had proven unstable.  Khian,  to save time  and  funds,  had  struck out Petepheres his chief architect's inner walls that  would  have  directed  the  stupendous  stress  and  weight  inward.  The structure  was  three-quarters finished when thousands of highly-skilled,  paid laborers began to throw away their tools and run in shrieking terror  down  the earthen ramps that lifted stones to the top. 

The overseers could not get them to return,  for they had  heard  the  chrysalis speaking, that is, groaning with the terrible sighs that pressaged doom.  Some even claimed they heard the distinct word,  Woe!  repeated over and over.  Others heard even stranger phrases:  The lamb wins!

Whatever they were saying or not saying, the very  stones  they  freshly laid were moving perceptibly outwards!  So they fled the monument to Khian's posthumous glory and would not return to  the work,  no  matter  how  much beer and bread they were offered and ointments for their  bruises  and  tired  limbs.

Then,  in  the  night  after  the  work  was  discontinued on the chrysalis an extremely rare but violent rain fell on the work.

Soon  all  Avaris  heard a rumbling,  as  of  the  sea  bursting  full on the land in a vast wave.  In a few moments years of labor by a great army of workmen  and  slaves  was destroyed.  The House of Eternity exploded in every direction, hurling 20-ton blocks like pebbles as far as mid-channel of the River. 

Khian's  grand  funerary  chapel,  chrysali  of various officials and the chief architect,  and part of the roofed causeway leading to the embalming chapel  at the riverside were also covered in rubble from the explosion.

In the morning the Per-aa's men found  broken  and tumbled  stone.  The  dissolute, declining  Hyksos  king  would never know immortal life without his House of Eternity.  The expense of building another to replace his lost tomb was beyond  his  means, especially  since  he had lost most of his country and his chief treasure-city,  Machitha, to his enemies.

People were even saying aloud as they had said soon after his accession that the foreign Per-aa had offended  the  gods.  After all,  he steadfastly refused to wear the sacred bull's tail attached to his belt in back.  It was also common  knowledge  his  scepter  was capped not by Nebel the falcon-god but a Hyksos demon combining a dog's head to a  donkey's  body  (certainly  the  two  most despised and loathed creatures in Mizraim).  So what divine tail did he possess?  It had to be a donkey’s! 

Rumors  and  twisted  bits  of the truth darted everywhere about the falling capital.  The whole effect was to belittle Per-aa Khian,  reduce him to a  mere man  or  less than an infallible god.  When that was accomplished there was much unrest stirring that would eventually tear down  the  locked  and  guarded gates of the palace itself. 

Knowing these doomsday developments and their outcome,  Potiphar turned to his wife (who had  been  secluded from  the  world  and  its troubles),  expecting to hear something gloomy.

Zenobia's face was radiant.  Yosef wants you to know he has forgiven us  and  is at peace concerning this house!  she informed him.

Not taking the slightest offense that a slave would forgive them their mistreatment,  Zenobia seemed childishly pleased,  so Potiphar, for whom forgiveness and reconciliation carried precious little weight, did not  say  anything. 

Thinking to humor her, he let her go on.

My lord, I heard he has a gift of understanding his God has given him concerning dreams.  I  had a dream not long ago.   I asked Ramoseh to do this favor.   Ramoseh took it to tell to Yosef  for his interpretation.  I  dreamed  of a golden sickle cast into the midst of the sea,  where it reaped tall mountains of their crowns and scattered them like dirt across  the  earth.  And  in  the white sands of the shore rolled up a great,  stone head of a god's image.  And as I watched it, the head rolled inland, striking against each city as it passed and casting down every  high  place  and  god,  smashing  them  in pieces, so that none stood against it.  Finally,  the head rolled up against a mountain that broke it in pieces.

And  what  did  Yosef  say?  Potiphar  replied  as mildly as possibly to Zenobia's long-winded whimsy. 

Zenobia seemed not to hear him. Her gaze seemed averted  by  something  she must  have  seen in the telling.  I have seen that head before!  I just cannot remember where, but I am certain I have seen it!

Before Potiphar could ask her again about Joseph, she went out, shaking her whitened head. 

He  never  did get to ask Yosef’s interpretation of his wife’s fantastic dream.  The dream seemed erased from her memory,  and with it the meaning.  Zenobia had  other  things  on  her mind, more to her liking than disasters she could not explain happening to foreign cities far away.  She  wanted  to  be taken not to her pleasure boat but Yosef’s sea-going ship. 

Now Potiphar was somewhat alarmed,  but after  instructing  Ramoseh  to  pay close attention to his mistress,  let her go.

After Zenobia's numb and mindless lethargy,  her old energy returned with a vigor  and  purpose  that startled Potiphar into wondering what she had in mind for the Ioteru,  as Zenobia called the ship.

The  collapse of  Hyksos rule  was  most  pressing,  even though Potiphar purposely stood by in the shadows as much as possible, rather than be drawn into the thick of it.  The ship, he thought,  might prove their only means of  escape,  when  the Ibbathans  stormed  the city and slaughtered everyone connected with the foreign court.  It could be only a matter of weeks or days before they rushed in to secure the double crown and the other insignia of Per-aa-hood stolen from Machitha's throne room by bygone Hyksos generals. 

Worshipped as gods themselves,  the crowns of the two  lands  were  mounted with the sacred uraeus-cobra that supposedly spat venom at whomever happened to touch the Per-aa's sacred person.   

As long as Khian had it,  this double crown, so ridiculous in size and heavy on a ruler's pate,  was  the  only  thing  that prevented  an  Ibbathan  taking  full  control of  Mizraim’s allegiance.

Of course, Khian would have to be killed if the double crown was  to  be  fully  restored  to  a Mizraimite.  Though  he hated wearing the contraption and threw it aside at the first opportunity,  there was no doubt Khian would rouse himself from his dissipations and fight to the death to keep it—for as long as it was his, he held the supreme authority, shrunken as it was at present. 

At  this  fateful  time a complication was injected into the fray by custom and tradition.  Every twenty years of a Per-aa's reign a national  jubilee  was proclaimed  and  the  Per-aa  was  obliged  to  run  the  17-mile circumference of  Machitha's sacred white walls.  It was the traditional test of a ruler’s physical powers and stamina.  If he dropped dead—the gods forbid!—he was obviously unfit to reign over the land.  Since most Per-aas did not reign that long and died before the ordeal, it was seldom run by a reigning Per-aa. 

Everyone  knew  that  Per-aa Khian had been in power twenty years.  But who was the legitimate ruler of Mizraim?  The Mizraimite claimant  in  Ibbatha  who had reigned but a few years or the foreign chieftain interloper in Avaris? 

All loyal to the Mizraim of old centered in Ibbatha thought the claimant there was entitled to run the race, but those who knew his spindly legs and flat feet despaired of his ever proving his potency to  his  subjects in this way.  Even if the Ibbathan pretender could muster enough strength to run in Khian's stead, he was still not wholly legitimate.  No royal prince could seize the throne on the basis of Mizraimite blood and lineage alone.  Everyone knew the throne descended not through the Per-aa per se or  to  a son  or  a  favorite  but  through  the Per-aa's daughter to her husband at the precise moment she imparted the Royal  Secret  of  Succession.  That protocol safeguarded the royal line and kept it pure of claimants and usurpers, so it was thought by the ordaining ancient Dawn King.

And  where  was there a daughter of the last, true, Mizraimite-blooded Per-aa?  Royalty and its right  to  rule  had  become  a  most complex and tangled affair in the present Mizraim.  Legitimacy  had  seemingly  been  lost  in  the turmoil of the Hyksos invasion.

With such annoying considerations on his mind,  Potiphar had much to  think about  as he sat in his rooms pondering the course he might have to take if the Ibbathans ever found a way out of their messy predicament. 

He had Zenobia and his servants to consider.  Though sequestered for life in a  dungeon,  since the charge of attempted rape and assault of a high-born could not be revoked in favor of a low-born, he  was quite safe,  indeed safer than the general populace of Avaris.

Should the Ibbathans attack, the delta was, except for the area around Hyksos fortresses,  liable to fall immediately.  He  had  to  think seriously  of  taking whatever  treasure  and  household  goods  they  could carry and fleeing in the Ioteru to Tyre or Gubla or some other Mizraimite  trade-city in the far north. 

When Yosef first purchased the boat and invited Lord Potiphar to go on board, it had exceeded the  length  of  even  a Hyksos warship and so seemed to him considerably over-sized for the use of his estate.

How things had changed!  Zenobia had filled it with her things and was looking  for more space on board!  Another sure sign was that Zenobia went to the trouble of having workmen rub the hull below the waterline with goat fat to discourage boring worms, and above the waterline shark oil was applied as a preservative, turning the pale wood a deep reddish-brown.

Then Ramoseh went over every foot of the hull inspecting the fiber used in the sewing of the planks.

So  it was with much misgiving he heard  Zenobia ask one day to take out the ship, even to sail it on the River.

He strongly suspected by her exertions in preparation she was asking for a greater favor than a pleasurable cruise in the canals and river channels.  She would not give him the reason for her going,  and he did not  ask. 

Would  she  tell  him  the truth? he wondered.  He was not certain she knew her mind as yet.  She had been very ill and was still mending.

All things considered, he had no solid proof of anything wrong and saw he had no reason to refuse her,  though it could entail the loss of the  boat  and perhaps  the means of his own escape.

Potiphar knew the Ibbathans would seek to settle old scores with him and wanted his skin as much as Khian’s, which was not an academic phrase either, as they had become expert,  from acquaintance with Hyksos methods,  in the flaying of enemy hides.

If his wife were indeed fleeing,  it might be just as well to let her go now as later when the Ibbathans set fire to the city,  he reflected.

If it had been his plan,  perhaps  she  would  have refused,  and he would have had to remain with her.   He had no desire to live to see her flayed alive. 

Zenobia was,  whatever her mental state,  a noblewoman.  Potiphar would never cross her will once  she had  chosen  to do something that lay within her rights as his wife and a high-born woman.  If she had been,  on the other hand,  a commoner like himself,  he would  have instantly refused.

In Mizraim, however, noble birth was everything.  A woman was even greater than a Grand Taty,  Masgeh or  Opeh if  she  were  privileged—as  Zenobia  was—to touch the Per-aa's scepter.  Zenobia,  he knew,  could go to the throne room and speak directly to any Per-aa and need not be called; he could not do anything of the sort.  He had to sneak in to out of the way places in the palace for private audiences.

Realizing  he  was going to be left behind,  Potiphar resigned himself like an old soldier to his predictable fate and watched, half-amused, at Zenobia's cheerful comings and goings to the quay.  He watched discreetly from the tower in the garden as her attendants carried a  steady  stream  of  furniture, stone  jars  of  food  and oil and wine,  travelling chests full of clothes and money and household treasure,  and whatever else she thought she needed for her  pleasure cruise on the River.   

The loading and outfitting seemed to be enough for two ships, much less one!  Potiphar had to wonder if the craft,  however big and well-tacked-together (for it was built and outfitted in Tyre) with Mizraimite overseers would not sink  from the incalculable weight of Zenobia's baggage.   He also wondered why she was carrying so much food, it would feed half of Avaris in a siege, he reckoned!

It was almost more than Potiphar could swallow without protest when Zenobia appeared  before him,  announcing her boat was ready for her little ride on the River.

Potiphar knew numerous,  armed Ibbathan patrols  were  raiding  Khian's shipping as far down as the River's mouth.  But it was not so much her leaving him and taking the  falcon ship  that  so disconcerted him,  it was giving up Ramoseh, one-armed but absolutely indispensable to him and the governing of the estate.  If he let that man go, he might well get another Tep-dut-we!

Let her take Assah her maid, he thought, glumly.  But his overseer, who had proved his worth? 

Instead of reasoning with him,  the woman had informed  him  of  her  guilt concerning Yosef.  She claimed his innocence at her expense.  Then she announced, most astoundingly regarding Yosef,  she was leaving Potiphar for a few days,  that he might be free to take Yosef from the prison and send him home to Ken'an to his father and family in a chariot! 

Potiphar did not like the sound of his wife’s confession at all.  What if word got around that she had acknowledged making a false accusation against a steward?  It was one thing to accept forgiveness from an underling—something never heard of in Mizraim before.  But to acknowledge wrong-doing to an underling went beyond the bounds of social decency and obligation and even the law of the land.

Zenobia would not be reasoned with, he saw at a glance.  He shrugged with the  resignation  of a veteran soldier,  and Zenobia,  after a pause to look at him,  departed his rooms.  She need not tell him her destination, he was sure it had to be her old stomping grounds.  He suspected  she  would  not  find Hazor,  her old home,  to her liking after so many years away.  But why tell her and spoil what might be a nice journey?

Ramoseh, at her command,  had outfitted the Ioteru with a  new  sail woven in Potiphar’s own outbuildings from zarah grown on the estate.  Triple-layered, it was strong  enough  to  take Zenobia wherever she had chosen in her heart to go.  Perhaps they would sail to Tyre, disembark there and go by caravan to Hazir, as he would say it. 

Zenobia  sailed  at  dusk.  He wondered why she waited for a late hour to sail, but recalled he had told Ramoseh the best time to elude both  Khian's  and  the Ibbathan  patrols  had to be at eventide when the mists blanketed the Delta and you could not see three feet in front of you.  Frigid waters flowing from the Ice Sea in the northwest, moving past the Sea of Floyda, met the Ioteru’s warm waters flowing from the delta into the South Sea, and the mist sprang up every evening when the contrary temperatures proved just right in collision.

Old fancies also fly about at dusk.  The Moon had already risen when he thought he saw Zenobia standing in his rooms,  though another  part  of his  mind told him it could only be a phantom rising from his wine cup, since he had already watched her ship sail an hour before.

Lying on  his couch against high-piled cushions,  he gazed at the apparition idly wondering if it were a wandering spirit or ka of someone from the ranks of the Dead; but it was too beautiful for that.  No spirit could  claim  such  eyes  and  full  and perfect lips. 

Tonight,  as the Moon filtered through the lattice of the upper windows and lit the likeness of Zenobia,  her husband thought  he  saw  the  woman  he  had married  in  her  youth:  a ravishing form with perfectly-chiseled features,  aquiline nose,  and hair arranged like a queen's. 

Presently,  he was alone again.  The bewitching moonlight,  so warm and luminous before,  seemed cold as it shone upon him.  A beautiful, treacherous and troublesome woman was gone from his life—probably forever.  A  dream  of  a wife...a true wife she had never been. 

Potiphar called out the moment she  disappeared into thin air—as phantoms should.  He fell back on his couch.  As he lay awake wondering if it really had been Zenobia, or a figment of his wine-cup,  the Ioteru rose higher round his empty, silent house in the swelling Inundation.

2  The Death of Heaphes

"Cast bread upon the waters;

a portion to seven or eight;

after a long time it will come

back and succour you.

—Keftiuan saying"

Down on the home front with common humanity,  Wally was not very pleased with his performance.  He had failed to keep Zenobia in check, and failed to keep Yosef from imprisonment.  At least he was alive, though Wally knew he could not take all the credit for that. 

Now what?  Meanwhile, OP, apparently too busy to bother with Earth at the moment, was decimating the Middle Universe in uncomfortable proximity to 3C 295.

Filling the heavens with beating wings,  all  birdlife  fled  the  sleeping island past ages had known as the mother of Atlantis II’s first civilization.

A deathly hush,  then Keftiu shook in the midst of the Green Sea, tumbling palaces and seventy cities into rubble. 

The event was not known to Mizraim until,  bit  by  bit,  news  arrived  at Khian's  court,  brought  by  Tyrian  trade envoys and representatives of other commercial city-states that traditionally  plied  Mizraimite  waters. 

Keftiu's high-prowed,  black-sailed  ships  did  not  make their appearance again on the Ioteru for months,  and the few that arrived carried refugees,  not fine goods  for sale. 

Per-aa Khian himself cared little about Keftiu and left their ambassador to his latest Grand Taty to