TEXT: Necropolis DOWNLOAD
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   CHAPTER 10.
  The Blemmyish
  Tribesman’s Account
  “Because there was yet room for precious cargo, all of us
  sought out and broke into the burial caves14 here. We looked
  into all of the small ravines around, too, and found many,
  many more tombs. Too bad! It was as I have already said.
  Those jackals rob their own! The filthy thieves had left
  nothing for us. So all we managed to loot were a few
  miserable little tombs, taking care to burn the withered
  corpses we found, for that is a great insult and harm to the
  mud-dwellers. We feared no magic, for the puny stuff of these
  gutless folk have no effect on the brave.15 We also knew such
  acts pleased the Lord of Warriors.16
  “It was I who found a rich-looking tomb, sealed, hidden on
  a ledge high above. It was at the end of a long ravine that had
  two forks.17 Why this one had been left unmolested for so
  long I cannot say. It was not very well hidden. The mud-
  dwellers are stupid, so their robbers must be likewise. That is
  my guess. Warriors can climb as well as they ride, and none
  ride so well as the brave. I shouted, and others came to join
  me there on a ledge before the sealed entrance. This was a
  Great Tomb, for it had the full picture-writing18 of the mud-
  chiefs all around it. Then the dung-gods19 of the land
  interfered.
  “Before we were able to begin breaking the big stone door
  beyond the two pillars hewn from the rock face, we were set
  upon by clu-clu-cluta20 (525, 5 times, 5 times 25) of the mud-
  dwellers’ soldiers. I managed to fight so well, I escaped, as did
  Jhunna beside me. A few hands21 of our brothers likewise
  battled free. The path my cousin had found did, as we
  discovered then, lead us to our own clean lands.22 Although
  we paused for a moment of mourning for the many brave
  warriors lost, we who survived were rich indeed, so we moved
  fast. Enemies and poisonous creatures took their toll as we
  went, and on the return journey we lost half of our brothers.
  I was uneasy, for it was dung-god curses, not bad luck that
  caused that! It was the will of the Lord of Warriors, and we
  smiled, for the remainder of us were thus made richer still,
  and it was of much benefit.
  “Now I am returning to the desert with Jhunna. He and I
  are the only ones left of the warrior braves23 who returned
  from the east. The fortunes we each carry will make our
  families wealthy and the tribe famous. I will certainly be the
  Great Shake and my cousin will be a chief man, too. Jhunna
  will have almost as many horses, camels, carpets, wives, asses,
  goats, and slaves as do I then!
  “My sons24 will certainly return to the place of the mud-
  dwellers one day to avenge the deaths of my brothers and to
  take wealth from useless places such as their houses and
  graves. My sons will never deal with you25 when they return
  laden with riches. You are all thieves. You cheat and steal
  shamelessly from a poor warrior. You give less than a tenth
  Translated and Annotated
  Translated and Annotated
  Translated and Annotated
  Translated and Annotated
  Translated and Annotated
   by Telemos Chiros
   by Telemos Chiros
   by Telemos Chiros
   by Telemos Chiros
   by Telemos Chiros
  “Too bad we never looted the Great Tomb! We came
  over from Khalla Wadi1 along the wild game and camel
  trails and thus entered the lands of the mud-dwellers.2 It
  was a good raid, for along the way we took slaves and much
  booty, all of which we sent back to our tribe with two
  hands3 of warriors as guards and to tell of our success. The
  shake and most of our chief warriors were for riding on
  toward the sunrise, but then I discovered the fort,4 and that
  changed everything. The enemy had built their strong
  place not far from where we had camped. Everyone knew
  that mud-dwellers stuff these forts with wealth, so all were
  agreed that we should attack it instead of moving onwards.
  “The place was too strong for us to storm, for the ones who
  always stay close to water5 are great cowards who hide behind
  walls of bricks or stones and use their magic6 in battle
  because they can’t fight at all. We knew that there could be
  only a few enemies in the fort, because otherwise the soldiers
  and wagon-fighters7 would have come forth to do battle
  when we rode in and surrounded their place. After we spent
  two days camped so as to surround the fort, our scouts found
  that the enemy had a rich burial place nearby. We aban-
  doned the useless squatting,8 and all of us rode with eagerness
  into the ravine where there were many weak forts,9 mastabas,10
  buildings, and tombs hewn into the rock. This sort of thing
  proves the mud-dwellers are crazy people, for they pay more
  heed to their dead than to the living. They build fine
  dwelling places for and squander precious things upon dried
  and useless corpses. This is known by all the warrior people
  tribes.11
  “It was sad, for most of the places we found and entered
  had already been plundered. Mud-dwellers steal from the
  sacred burial places of their own. They have no shame!
  Besides, there are heavy curses placed upon such tombs —
  mostly against their own kind.12 The great ones of this land
  must have thought that real men would never come to where
  their dead bodies were placed. We showed them differently.
  After taking the small forts one by one, we shared out the
  silver and gold and other valuable stuff, too. We killed all
  prisoners, of course, as we now had too few warriors to guard
  slaves.
  “My cousin, Jhunna, had discovered a long, narrow path
  that he thought led back out of the ravine and into the
  mountains.13 We wanted such a trail of course, for now it was
  nearing the time to take our plunder and return to the clean
  sands of our homeland to the west. However, along the
  narrow way were tombs not yet touched! This was indeed
  work for warriors.
  
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  THE BLEMMYISH TRIBESMAN’S ACCOUNT
  of the value of the fine jewelry and other fine things I have
  brought to you to sell. I curse you never to enjoy the
  refreshment and health of camel urine! Your sons will be
  eunuchs and serve as girls —”
  Here the text is abruptly cut off. The man who transcribed
  and retained this tale for a time made some observations of
  his own hereafter, but they pertained to the man with whom
  he dealt and the Blemmyish nomads in general, not the
  “Great Tomb.”
  Translator’s Notes
  Translator’s Notes
  Translator’s Notes
  Translator’s Notes
  Translator’s Notes
  1. Khalla Wadi is the pass to the oasis of Dakhla-Amun.
  2. Lands of the mud-dwellers refer to civilized, non-desert
  Khemit.
  3. Two hands of warriors means 10 mounted tribesmen.
  The plunder taken must have been considerable to send off
  that many of their men. Incidentally, the Blemmyish, their
  kindred tribes, as well as most of the Yarban nomads now
  intermingled in the desert lands surrounding Khemit, use a
  quinary rather than a decimal system for counting. Numer-
  als are used for 1 through 4, a glyph for 5, 25, 125, etc.
  4. Fort is probably erroneous, as there is no mention of
  great wealth inside, so it is likely that the author of this tale
  discovered a fortified temple.
  5. The ones who always stay close to water is an expression
  for the Khemitians in general. The nomadic tribesmen call
  their cavalry “soldiers,” also a derisive name, for it is not
  “warriors,” but nonetheless the nomads avoid confronta-
  tion, save if they can manage an ambush.
  6. Magic is of course anything magical and the use of spells.
  The tribes are virtually helpless in this account, having no
  spellcasters able to match a priest or wizard, albeit they have
  at times managed to develop some potent sorcerers and the
  like.
  7. Wagon-fighters is a reference to the chariots and their
  warrior crews still used by the Khemitians until recently,
  albeit on rare occasions and usually only in mass formations
  where the terrain is flat and hard. I suspect the barbarian is
  embellishing his yarn.
  8. Useless squatting means the tribesmen were getting
  nowhere with their siege and knew it. Any fighting not done
  from camel or horseback is deemed improper.
  9. Weak forts certainly refers to small temples or shrines, if
  the “fort” proper was indeed a large temple.
  10. Mastabas is the Yarban word for bench, of course, and
  by this the tribesman means a Khemitian tomb of rectangu-
  lar sort with a flat roof and inward sloping supporting walls.
  11. Warrior people tribes means the Blemmyish, of course,
  and by inference all like nomads.
  12. Curses . . . mostly against their own kind seems ignorant.
  Magical wards and traps will function particularly well
  against anyone who happens to trip them. Perhaps these
  tomb robbers found unguarded places or broke in through
  walls to avoid triggering the dweomers.
  13. Mountains evidentially refers to the plateau, bluffs,
  hills, and ravines that form a barrier beyond the Khemitian
  western desert in the Middle Kingdom area. These savage
  nomads have probably never seen a real mountain.
  14. Burial caves here must mean the usual Khemitian sort,
  which are either actual or artificially dug places on the faces
  of ravines and cliffs. A large area might contain one impor-
  tant tomb or a whole series of minor ones beginning at
  ground level and working up.
  15. The brave refers to those warrior nomads who have, I
  recall, slain more than two foes and ridden on more than four
  raids.
  16. Lord of Warriors is the chief deity of the strange little
  Blemmyish pantheon. He is said to have as many names as
  there are different sorts of weapons, but no single one of them
  may be uttered by a tribesman, on pain of death!
  17. Two forks is possibly misleading, and if so, purpose-
  fully done. In the patrols of the nomads, this might mean a
  single splitting of the ravine, a forking into two tines, but
  he might also mean two separate branches of the main
  defile. Such inexactness is typical of the Blemmyish.
  18. Picture writing means not only hieroglyphs, but those
  contained in cartouches, for otherwise the reference to
  “chiefs” makes no sense.
  19. Dung-gods could be an epithet of derogatory sort for the
  Khemitian pantheon in general, but this being related after
  the fact, it is possible that it actually refers to unclean or evil
  deities worshipped by the attacking force. Deital standards
  are sometimes carried by troops serving a temple.
  20. Clu-clu-cluta, literally 525 as indicated, also means
  very, very many in Blemmyish. In any event, a force whose
  number was “too few . . . to guard even slaves” is unlikely to
  have needed such a number of troops to defeat, nor could this
  nomad have fought his way through such a number of
  soldiers.
  21. A few hands can mean no fewer than 15 and no more
  than 24 total escapees. If 25 had been able to flee, he would
  have used cluta after hands.
  22. Clean lands refers to the filthy deserts over which the
  Blemmyish rove.
  23. Warrior braves combining, as it does, the two terms
  separately noted above, seems to indicate that this band of
  marauders was seasoned veterans.
  24. My sons is probably a general term, as is “brothers” as
  used in the text. He likely means those of kindred spirit.
  25. Deal with you is clearly aimed at and addressing the
  Cyrenaic merchant traders — the mean spirit and dishonest
  nature of whom I myself have been too frequently suffered to
  endure.
  Note: The above text is available as a free download
  from the Necromancer Games website
  (www.necromancergames.com) on the Product Support
  page.
  
  Necropolis DOWNLOAD
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