“BIRTH OF PHARAOH” CHAPTER 7

“NYERA IS GONE”

COPYRIGHT 2023. CORINNE DEVIN SULLIVAN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Guards walk into the private chambers for the King of Po. It’s a configuration of rooms built inside the same building that holds the throne.

Home-made boots clatter rhythmically on the floor. Each man in the squadron has learned to survive in the wilds, upon a planet that was barely inhabited. Each fabricated his own clothes. Each has built his own weapon. They walk like true athletes though, far from their home planet, they feel like terrified children inside.

The group hopes that King Po will not be hurried by their arrival at his door.

There has been no further contact with The Factory since Skin made himself into their King.

Ever since they arrived to Planet Po, there has been several dark ships bearing the sign of a large bird upon them. These were flown by troopers who call each other gangsters. They have been hired directly by the Creator so as to “hire” free people who previously dwelled upon Po’s neighbor, Planet Fresus.

Strangely, ever since Skin rose as their king, the people haven’t seen any of these gangsters, or their ships. With the king’s ascent, they, too, seem to have removed themselves completely.

With the guards walks a new priest. He has a riveting look. He carries a book filled with his meditations. His garb is a formless smock that travels from his neck to his ankles. It has been adorned with stitched flowers for adornment. He concocted all of this himself, once it was agreed that priests were going to be needed there.

Skin’s face draws back in surprise and he screams, “I am interrupted with this thing!”

With this feeling of shock at his having been suddenly interrupted, Skin experiences a simple revelation that he is there in his bed chambers at all, as if there were endless possible other places for him to escape to. Next, he is able to encounter yet another sensation inside his body: the hormonal development of surprise, internally.

“Nyera is dead, isn’t she?” Skin asks the guard from his bedroom floor.

Skin kneels inside a pool of deceased matter, its innards splayed everywhere, his own mouth moist with the wet blood he had drawn. Nyera’s hair is everywhere. There is no sign of any life within her.

In pledging their firm allegiance to Skin, the commitment was something so remote that each guard found himself telling one and all they are, also, now Skin’s priests. For, it seems, religion fills everyone’s time these days. As they have never been anointed, they allow their authority to pass through them. It is Priest Tyre who must answer to both heaven and to the King for this day’s results.

Tyre guides Skin up onto his feat, and the king asks, “Did she ever bear my child?”

Tyre pats Skin’s arm, guides him out of the mess on the ground.

Tyre says, “No, sire, for you were joining with her for far less than one year.”

Skin asks, “Nyera was like me, wasn’t she?”

“Eh?”

“She…,” begins Skin who feels feeble inside, “seemed good. It was… pure. Was she brought into the world for no one’s sake, free? She… seemed Pharaoh.”

Skin is bursting to speak more. But this mind and body of his instead begins to cry. It is a holy experience for the man who was brought to Po as something like a machine. He never knew he couldn’t understand himself, the way he can’t understand anyone much else who surrounds him, at least during a moment of deep contemplation. For this, he is resigned to his duty. He crumbles to the ground, folds over. Tyre kneels next to the man.

“Will you clean me, sir?” asks Skin, as if he is only a boy.

Skin turns his face upwards. Tyre will touch Skin’s chin, accept the beauty of the mold used to craft Skin’s appearance. In the beauty of Skin’s face, obtuse fragments of deceit and lies are there, too. This is something Tyre is fearful for. In truth, he detests everything. However, accepting his own and the Pharaoh’s alliance as mortal fate, Tyre feels warmth inside his soul. He decides he is lucky to be alive. With that, he feels grateful he has made it to this moment, at all.

“There are many advancements of the mind’s technology I can’t learn about yet, can I?” asks Skin, and he cries.

Tyre responds, “We understand. You are human. Like us.”

From the edge of the room, a guard proclaims, “Your kindness amazes me, sire.”

Tyre explains to everyone, “This is goodness.”

Skin, as King Po, yearns to break free from feeling too humble. He stands.

Tyre stands next to him and speaks to all, “With this day—which we shall name Nyera and bestow an upcoming holiday with attached ceremonial feast—King Po shall try something, maybe, better. And better is needed here. There are always so many risks. We aren’t ever certain of tomorrow. Things were getting so very, very trying with Nyera. With this day, all the trouble from Nyera is gone from here for good?”

Resting his bloodied arms and goo on the priest’s smock, Skin asks, “Am I good?”

“Yes,” Tyre responds at once. Everyone in the room sighs and laughs a little.

With a kind smile, Tyre says at once, “You are good, my human.”

These are words that matter most to Skin. Now, he feels a balance coming back into him. But, then, thinking of Nyera’s death on his bedroom floor, his face turns back to wonder.

Tyre hopes to calm him further so he says, “And, you are my master. Also, my boy-child who I adorn.”

One of the guardsman cries loudly, “Master of everything!”

Pharaoh peers for a long time at the faces in the room. He is mortal. He is dripping in the blood of one just like him. He should never have been born, and he should never have hurt Nyera. But, he is not going to stop. For this, he knows, he is stupid, but must never show it or lose the strength of these people who stare at him and applaud him.

Pharaoh tightens his mouth. His jaw flexes. He walks over to his bed and organizes things there.

He prepares himself for speech with the microphone strapped again to his jaw.

The men in the area are out of breath. Exhaustion is everywhere. The terror dead in front of them all, inside her own chambers, is too gruesome. They detest it. There is no answer for their own life, nor for Skin’s existence. They simply stare in terror until someone speaks.

Suddenly, something in the air enjoins that they mock this thing they have spotted on the ground. The men begin to smile in a strange manner. They look at each other in amazement that this thing, this phantom, has somehow returned to make them all smile.

Pharaoh speaks in clear tones that feel so sweet to each man’s troubled soul, and in this he says, “I am Pharaoh. I am man. I am more… to my amazement. Much more.”

The men at Skin’s call accept they cannot understand their new king’s mindset. They caress him and fill his void with hope that he, as a man, is the same as them. This is what matters most to say to him because, in reality, Skin is forever a reborn monster from the Netherworld, in truth.

Some days later, in the Main Hall of the ancient encampment, many tables are set. Upon them are fruits and berries and sawed-off carcasses of land mammals. All of the people at Skin’s command join him for a feast.

Amongst these people is a woman who goes by the name of Pavla Feyta Max. She was married to Problo Max. She hid by dressing as a man and sat beside her husband on the airship when he was stolen from Planet Fresus and sent to Po.

Pavla’s friendship with her husband was her happiness and her bliss. She had never loved someone like Problo before. Alas, he was killed by Pharaoh of the worst type: the first batch who hunted, slaughtered and ate until, suddenly, someone stabbed them each in the back and they all died one night.

Since those first terrifying nights, and the grief she accepted in the aftermath, Pavla has put her mind onto the company’s easement. Their circumstances are terrifying moment by moment. This band of free people have no information about the approaching seasons. They lack resources and have not dared to tread far away in the event the creatures or plants outside may be murderous to man.

Gaining an understanding about weather, as well as plants and animals living on Po, has proven a challenge. Half of the people have taken this work upon themselves. It is something to consume themselves with every day and night. This is also Palva’s job.

Entering the feast, something established by King Po’s followers, Pavla is amazed at what has been grown and harvested in the food terrariums. It is beautiful.

For Pavla, the world is vapid tonight. Something is terrible inside her now. She clutches at the table in front of her. She is aware that somebody is going to murder someone, and that now is the time for her to be able to fight. She draws the conclusion to keep a knife held in her lap.

“The Law of Meat is now my new thing,” says Skin, the King of Po.

All the diners stop and look at him.

Skin is straddled on his chair, kicking his feet that dangle in the air.

Skin says, “I know what to do.”

The guard were expecting terrible things. What they were not expecting was Skin to take one to the room’s center.

Seated at the head table is Thamy. He asks, “What is this?”

Priest Tyre’s worried look sets off a chain reaction of gasps.

Priest Tyre asks, “What should we know, sire?”

“I will show you,” he whispers, and draws near to the terrified man. In a flash, their King has hurt the innocent man deeply. Blood gushes everywhere.

“This is terrible. I am right about this. Leave him!” Skin screams at the many people who want to help the dismembered man.

The guard dies alone, slowly, while calling, “Jessica… Jessica…” to thin air.

Skin, satisfied the man is gone, asks, “Do you feel good, now, to see him wicker away?”

The room is dead silent. An even stranger look comes over the face of the King of Po.

He screams, “I can’t eat you. Go! Now!”

There is a strange feeling everywhere. Thamy is not good with this but has learned to be more strategic than to attempt to fight with Skin directly. Instead of arguing with Skin, he nods slightly at Pavla who is seated a few tables away. They have put in hours together in the sunshine, working on crafting things for themselves. They have an agreement to survive.

Pavla tells herself she will most certainly survive this night. She knows she can outrun most people. She has a way of getting out of scrapes.

Skin strolls back to his seat. He places his hand on the top, drags the crown off. It’s been there for ages. He drops it on the ground.

“Disgusting dirt!” he says to everyone.

Next, he straps his microphone to the chin, calls out, “Don’t forget this, ever. I can only eat the good. People like me are fine for me to eat. Pharaoh only for me, guts and all.”

Skin’s words are too perfect in pronunciation. They can’t be so good, sound so authentic and true, think all the people in this room. They sink into their thoughts, wondering about how they can possibly go about preparing for safe burial the body of their fallen friend, there on the ground.

TO CONTINUE THE ADVENTURE CLICK ON CHAPTER EIGHT: “SAILING ON THE BONNE VALLE QUATRA” FROM THE RENEYT HOMEPAGE!