Historians from the Kush Empire will say that I'm a liar, but I don't care. What do these shmucks who call themselves scholars and archivists of ancient Africa know anyway? They read about events from way before their time, and ponder their significance, while I was actually there, experiencing that of which I speak. And don't you or anyone else dare to call me a traitor, either. Some of the world's greatest patriots have been called traitors...
This is the tale of how I, Utatrerses, the son of a Kushite noblewoman who legally married an Axumite Prince, was dispossessed of my rightful paternal inheritance through my maternal uncle Izar's treachery. This atrocity was done with the complicity of the so-called Imperial Court of Kush. This happened during the reign of Empress Makeda, the legendary Queen of Sheba, who reigned over the Kushite Empire between 1005 and 950 B.C.
Long before I was transformed into what I am today, a creature that walks by night and drinks the blood of the living, I was a mortal man who despised the Kush Empire. And now that I'm Immortal, my hatred of all things Kushite has grown a thousand-fold. Most of my fellow Immortals believe that I should put aside my anger, and move on. I believe in settling accounts, and where we have been, and what we have done, why, those are the things that make us who we are. Without further ado, I have a tale to share with you...
"Utatrerses, what are you, taking a nap? Those rocks aren't going to crush themselves," snapped Abu-Kar, the burly, mahogany-hued Kushite Overseer. At six-foot-six, Abu-Kar was a couple of inches taller than me, and much larger. Built like an ox, that one. The man's bulk and harsh, ugly face intimidated many among the Prisoners, myself included. I had witnessed the Overseer's brutality on many occasions, and had no desire to experience it for myself.
Like all the Prisoners at Napata's largest Prison, I have been conscripted into the service of Her Majesty, Empress Makeda of Kush. Whether I like it or not, my task is to improve the roads leading into the mountains of Kush, a treacherous network of roads linking the Capital of Napata with its lesser rival, the City of Meroe. Such is the fate that has befallen me, following my fall from grace...
"Yes, milord," I replied, and Abu-Kar's dark-skinned, rough-hewn face glared at me, a mask of contempt. I saw raw hatred in his obsidian eyes, and sighed with apprehension. Towering, dark and massively muscled, with a shaven head and a thick beard, Abu-Kar used to be a soldier in the Kushite Imperial Army. How he became an Overseer in Napata's Prison is anyone's guess. I think the Kushite Imperial Army fellows got tired of this ugly, mindless brute and sent him to inflict himself on less fortunate souls, such as myself.
"Mock me again, Utatrerses, and I'll flay you alive," Abu-Kar replied, his stentorian voice causing me to wince, though I casually shrugged and resumed my task. I wanted to tell the brute to go mate with a cow, but I kept my mouth shut. With a large sledgehammer, I continued to hammer away at the rocks, with the merciless African sun at my back. Sometimes I wonder what I did to offend Aspelta, the deified King of Kush by which most of my countrymen swear, to deserve such a fate...
"Utatrerses, I think the Overseer is in love with you, all he wants to do is give you some tender loving care," came a voice dripping with laughter. I turned to look at my fellow Prisoner, a young man named Her-Si, originally from the land of Punt. Tall and slender, with wavy dark hair and dark brown skin, Her-Si resembled the people of Axum, my father's people. Axum and Punt are right next to each other, although the two nations historically haven't gotten along...
"Mind your own business, Her-Si, I'm not in the mood," I snapped, as I wiped sweat from my brow. Her-Si laughed and continued to chip away at the mountainside, and I paused for a moment. Everywhere I looked, I saw hard-bodied men at work. Scores of Prisoners, numbering in the hundreds, busily rebuilding the lengthy mountainside road separating the City of Napata from the City of Meroe. My fellow Prisoners, toiling away under the mercilessly hot sun...
Fate brought these unfortunate men here, like the pitiless mistress that she is and always shall be. Most of these men were wayward citizens of the Kush Empire, whose crimes were deemed serious enough to merit Prison time but not serious enough to warrant more severe punishments such as being decapitated, sold into slavery, or turned into eunuchs and sent into the sex trade. Come to think of it, there are worse things than being a Prisoner, after all...
Life wasn't always like this for me. Truly unfortunate circumstances brought me to this low point. My father, Tigray of the Kingdom of Axum, was a Prince among his people and a major trader of oils, spices and slaves. He traded with the Kush Empire so much that he ended up marrying a Kushite woman, my mother Nabila. The two of them settled in a seaside villa near the City of Napata, Capital of the Kushite Empire.
I grew up wealthy and privileged, in our large, beautiful villa by the sea, with many servants. My father Prince Tigray doted on me, and I attended the best schools. Scholars from places like Axum, and Egypt, came to our household, to teach me about mathematics, geography, and history. I learned how to use a sword and a spear from a formidable teacher named Marok, once a chieftain among the ruthless Afar people, who roam a wasteland close to the Kushite border. All was well, until my father's death. That's when everything started to go wrong...
My mother's proud Kushite family, especially her brother Izar, an ambitious Kushite nobleman, never approved of her marriage to a foreigner from the Kingdom of Axum. My mother Nabila violated many taboos when she accepted my father Prince Tigray's marriage offer, and her brother Izar never truly forgave her for it. In the old days, just like today, most families did not like giving their daughters away to foreign men. I never gave the matter much thought, until the day my life changed...
My father Prince Tigray of Axum passed away due to illness during the eighteenth summer of my life, and by all rights, I should have inherited everything, as befitting the laws of the time. In the Kushite Empire, the eldest son of a household inherits everything after his father's passing, including any titles and properties. That's not what happened in my case...
"You are a half-blood, Utatrerses, a mongrel, and not a true Kushite, so your mother's property falls to me, her oldest male relative," said my uncle Izar, the day after my father Prince Tigray's funeral. I looked at the burly, dark-skinned, bald-headed and silver-goateed Kushite nobleman, and paused. For a moment, I thought he had spoken in jest, but when I looked into his chocolate eyes, I saw that the man was dead serious...
"Uncle Izar, I do not understand your sense of humor, my father Prince Tigray of Axum left me this property and the one in the City of Meroe, and you were there when he signed the deed over to me," I protested, and Uncle Izar laughed merrily. I started toward him, but he nodded at Ra-Mon and Hal-Tan, a couple of burly Kushite laborers attached to my father's household, and the two of them seized me. I watched as Uncle Izar pulled a scroll from his robes, and displayed it before my face.
"This deed? Oh, Utatrerses, it is no more," Uncle Izar said, and he ripped the scroll apart before my very eyes. I screamed in anger, and Hal-Tan and Ra-Mon took me away. I screamed, demanding to see my mother. As I was led away, everyone in the household stood by and watched. I looked at these men and women whom I had known my entire life. Our family's cooks, cleaners, gardeners, and shepherds, and I wondered if any of them would fetch my mother. Surely as lady of the household, she would put an end to this travesty...
"This foreign lad has assaulted my person, hold him until the gendarmerie arrives to take him to Prison," Izar shouted, and as I was led away in shackles from my own household, I swore revenge upon him. Thus I was taken to Napata's Prison, and condemned to ten years of hard labor. Such is the fate of foreign men who offend the sensibilities of Kushite citizens in their own homeland.
In matters of justice, the Imperial Court of Kush could hardly be expected to side with a foreigner over one of their own. Empress Makeda, the Holy Kandake, supreme ruler of the Kush Empire, claimed to be a fair-minded woman, but I saw the way she and the other assembled nobles looked at me the day I walked into court. They looked at me and saw a foreigner.
I kind of knew what to expect, but hope still burned in my heart, until narrowed eyes and downturned lips greeted me at the Imperial Court of Kush. Their minds were made up before my Counsel could open his mouth. Except that I considered myself a Kushite, since my mother Nabila is a Kushite woman. Evidently, the fact that my father Prince Tigray was an Axumite made me a veritable mongrel in the eyes of the Kushite Judiciary, who sided with my Uncle Izar in this unfortunate family dispute...
That night, as I lay on my cot, inside my cell, I thought of all the twists and turns that my life has taken. Five years had gone by since Uncle Izar stole my property and my good name from me. I wasted away in Prison. My mother and so-called cousins never visited me. I knew they'd forsaken me, since I was a half-blood and not a true Kushite. The source of their hatred mystified me. My father Prince Tigray was always kind and generous in his dealings with my mother's people. For them to betray his memory like this made me seethe with anger...
"One day I will get out of here and avenge my father," I said to myself, as I rested. Dark times awaited the Kushite Empire, and this time, the empire faced a threat it had never encountered before. The Imperial Army of Kush has defeated marauders from Punt, warriors from Axum, raiders from the Afar, and even pirates from the Persian world. The Kushite people, whom I was starting to despise, thought themselves invincible. Little did they know that not all threats to the great empires of man come from man's world...
