The Diary of Teremut Part 3 - The Day

I spent the next three years helping my father with the machine that would send me back in time. I learned much about physics, space, time, mathematics, biology and chemistry. Despite this knowledge that I have gained, I knew nothing as to how this machine was to work. My father specifically kept this a secret from me, even the main idea behind it all.

I soon learned what my mother meant about lying. They lied to me all the time, causing me many hours of anger and heartache. I had to learn the hard way how to lie and also how to tell when others were lying to me.

It was a difficult time for me. My parents knew. I knew. We knew that I was soon going to leave and never return. The only thing was that none of us knew when that day was going to come. Until it came.

“Come prince Teremut,” my father began to call me prince ever since that night when I entered the basement for the first time. “Hurry.”

He was frightened. He had just returned from an outing that he would not tell me about. It was important and imperative for the machine to work, that was all I knew.

He grabbed my shoulder and began dragging me towards the basement.

“What is it father?” I half suspected this to be another lie. Another test.

He didn’t answer. He only opened the basement door and slipped in, pulling me along with him. This scared me. My first fear was that he had found out about me spending the night with my girlfriend last weekend. I was sure that I had taken my parents’ lying techniques to heart well enough to paint the perfect lie. My parents did not even know about her, or at least this is what I thought.

I soon realized that my father was not upset with me due to the fact that he quickly closed the door behind us and locked it with four different bolts and locks. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my lie. It was something far more important.

My father let go of me and knelt in front of the wall with all the hieroglyphs. He lifted his hands up towards the symbol of the sun. He was holding a small test tube filled with a clear liquid, but there was a small dark spec floating in it.

“Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.” He slowly pronounced every word carefully in Egyptian. His eyes were closed. “My god, I have come this far to please thee.”

This was a different prayer than the normal recited one that I had always heard my father repeat. I could only guess that he was performing a ritual that was new to me.

“The sun from the sky, the glory of Egypt is at hand. Accept this offering.”

It couldn’t be today. I thought. The machine wasn’t ready. There was still more to fix, and we still needed to test it.

My father rose and turned to face me. His eyes were calm, but his eyebrows narrowed. He was serious. Fear gripped at my heart. My hands quickly became moist with sweat.

“Hanif!” my mother’s voice was hoarse outside the basement door. “Hanif! Unlock this door now!” I could tell she was frightened as well.

My father ignored her and slowly walked up to me. He took out of his pocket a small medical needle. He grabbed my left arm tightly.

“Don’t struggle.” he quietly whispered. “This is anesthesia, to reduce the pain.”

“What?” I pulled my arm out of his grasp. “What is the meaning of this, father?”

“There is no more teaching to be done. No more learning. No more waiting.” He took a deep breath. “We must please Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.”

“I don’t believe you, father.” He had to be lying. The machine was not ready. “Now open the door and let me continue my learning.”

“Hanif! He’s not ready!” Mother’s voice became shrill. “Open this door!”

“This is no test, my son.” His voice was no longer the quiet soft whisper. It was growing in tension. “I failed to be unnoticed last night.”

“What?”

“The machine requires a piece of the pharaoh from the past in order to function.” He pulled out the test tube I saw earlier. “Here is a piece of the late pharaoh Tutankhamen.”

The spec was a dark brown flake about the size of my pinkie finger nail. It was cracked in several spots. I shuddered to think that this was once a part of an actual human being.

“I went to the exhibition last night to retrieve this. I misjudged how much security would be watching the body.”

“Hanif! Terem! Open the door!”

“I got this only at the price of expending one of the guards.” His eyes seemed to darken; they were no longer calm.

“You killed him?”

“It was necessary to appease Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.”

My mother ceased screaming, only to pound on the door with what must have been all her might. She pounded again. The thud echoed in my ears.

“They will find us here.” he turned to view all the work we have accomplished. The machine sitting on the bench next to hundreds of pieces of paper full of calculations and drawings. The large pile of reread books on the floor next to the bench. The countless colorful wires connecting the machine to the wall and with other pieces. “All our work will be destroyed.”

Thud. Another hard pound on the door echoed throughout the basement.

“We will be imprisoned, or worse. Terminated.” He turned to face me again. A tear had left a dark wet streak on his face. This was his life. His whole life pursuit.

Thud.

“Prince Teremut. Please, don’t struggle.” He grabbed my arm again.

“No. I still don’t believe you father.” Once again I pulled my arm away. I walked to the door and placed my hand on the doorknob ready to let my mother in. I hesitated.

What if my father was right? I thought. What if today really was the day? If what my father said was true, then I will have to use the machine. I will have no other choice but to fulfil my father’s vision. And I will never see my parents again. They will take them away from me such that the machine will never be able to bring me back to them after I accomplish my task in Egypt. It was a one way ticket.

Thud. The pounding hurt my ears this time, ringing through what felt my whole being.

I gripped the knob tighter. A crash exploded outside the basement, in our apartment. A window shattered. Footsteps ran inside the apartment.

“No!” My mother’s voice was full of terror now. “Go, Teremut! Go! I love you, my son!”

I recoiled from the door. Afraid. A sharp pain erupted in my left arm. My father had snuck up behind me and injected the needle into my arm.

“Hurry, Prince Teremut. It’s now or never.” My father’s voice was quavering.

“Ow!” I gripped my arm where he had stuck the needle. He pulled me quickly over to the chair next to the machine. I sat down, feeling my arm slowly turn numb.

We heard struggle outside the door.

“No!” my mothers voice was angry.

“Where is he?” a deep voice seemed to crash through the door.

My father was working as quickly as he could. He grabbed the countless wires and began placing them in the right sockets on the machine. He ripped my shirt off and began pinching the wires into my skin. I felt no pain, but I felt the skin move under my father’s hands.

“No! He’s not here!” My mother shouted.

“Open this door, miss.”

A wire was placed over my heart. Another on my right shoulder. Several more lined my spine on my back. My father quickly placed ten more wires all over my neck.

Thud. The man must have begun to pound on the door. My mother was screaming incomprehensibly now.

My father placed the head piece over my brow. He strapped the leather strap around my head, keeping it place.

Thud. The pounding matched the headache that quickly appeared.

My father placed a dozen more wires all over my head. His hands were shaking now.

Thud. The door creaked. A few more hits and the door would fling off of its hinges.

My father tied my arms down to the chair. Fear of death was all I could feel now. Fear from the machine, not from the man outside. What was my father doing? Mother was right. Father was taking me away from her. He was hurting me.

My father looked up into my eyes. He wiped a tear from my cheek.

My mother’s screams fell silent.

Thud.

I couldn’t believe what was happening. It went all so fast. My head was spinning. It hurt. The numbness of my body began to tingle and twitch. My stomach retched. A sour taste of bile entered my mouth.

Thud.

“It’ll work, my son.” He was crying, but he held the tears back. “It’ll work.” I could tell that he was reassuring himself more than he was trying to reassure me. My father was brilliant, but there was always that possibility of failure in his mind.

“Father,” I coughed, and spit the bile out of my mouth to the side. “Father, I love you.”

Thud.

“No son. Love Aten, my Lord, the sun from the sky.” he paused, “He is your father now.”

He stood up and walked behind me to where the metal box, or the machine, was sitting on the table. Father flipped several switches on the wall. The power began to buzz, dimming the lights in the basement room.

Thud.

The buzzing grew louder. My headache intensified with the buzzing causing me to bend over as much as I could in the chair.

“Fulfill your destiny, my son!”

Never have I felt so sick in the head before. It felt like the room was now spinning around me. The buzz of power soon became the only audible noise. I closed my eyes, hoping that this would all disappear into a nightmare. But it didn’t.

I was scared.

Pain erupted first at my heart. My body jolted with the energy that was surged through my body from the wires connected to the machine. I screamed in pain, but my mouth didn’t move. My body jolted again, followed by another wave a shearing pain coming from my spine.

I felt the cold floor on my face for a moment. If felt as though a sharp pain stabbed my heart and ripped it out of my chest. Another stabbed my shoulders and yanked at me. My spine buckled under an explosive fire of pain. I screamed again, but no audible noise was heard.

A large bright light flooded my vision instantly blinding me. The buzzing noise left me with an echo of fear in my mind. The pain subsided from my body.

All I could sense was this blinding light that enveloped my entire being. It seemed to keep me warm at the same time keeping me cold. I could hear the light. It made a noise; one that I cannot explain. But at the same time I heard absolutely nothing.

Fear gripped me.

I must be dead. There’s no other explanation. I thought. And, yet, I’m thinking. Can I be dead and still think? Or am I still alive?

The Diary of Teremut Part 2 - The Machine

Ever since then my life had changed. I no longer went to the public school. I no longer cared about other simple things. My life was centered on Egypt. My excitement, my joys, my love, my passion, and my heart belonged to Egypt and to King Tutankhamen.

My parents taught me the Egyptian language. I was even able to understand the Hieroglyphs. They showed me how the Egyptians used to live. My life became a history class, but an interactive one.

My father was either teaching me or he stuck himself in his basement for hours upon end. I never found out what my father was doing until six years later, when I snuck into the basement to behold the machine.

I was curious. My father spoke nothing of his project during out lectures. But I knew that what he was doing was important. He always would bow his head in reverence before entering the basement. Some days he would leave the basement with a smile, but most days he was frustrated. Every time I tried to talk to him about it, he would tell me,

“Don’t worry Teremut. When the time is right, you will know.”

This slightly angered me. I was 16 at the time and thought that I had full rights to know what my father was doing; because, this seemed to have everything to do with my destiny. All my lectures seemed to be pointing to what my father was doing, yet I had no idea what. I had to know.

Finally my day had come. I made it my day to know. My father left one weekend. The time was now or never. I spent an hour with a small piece of metal trying to open the lock on the door to the basement. The door clicked open. I lifted the door so that it would not squeak on the hinges. I had to be careful, even though it was midnight and my mother always went to bed early.

The small corridor was dark as I slipped through the crack in the door. My breath was quick. For several years I’ve wondered what was in here, and yet I never had the courage to see for myself.

I closed the door behind me and quietly walked down the small corridor. I used a small mechanical device, called a flashlight, as a lamp to illuminate the room. The small amount of light showed to me a large bench strewn with hundreds of pieces of paper, something similar to papyrus. Thousands of symbols, lines, numbers, and equations were scribbled all over each of these pieces of paper.

Several large pieces of paper were pinned up against the wall behind the bench. These had pictures of some kind of machine. Designs. My father was designing some kind of machine. But where was it?

I turned around in the small dark room. Two other benches lined the right wall. One of them had a small box with hundreds of wires attached to it. There were about ten different clocks or watches laid out on the bench. Each one was at exactly the dame time as the others; except one, which was exactly two minutes slow.

The other bench was full of large textbooks. Physics, mathematics, engineering, astrology and astronomy. There was even one large textbook entitled, “Einstien’s Theory of Relativity.” My father was reading in the middle of the chapter entitled “Time.”

“What is my father doing?” I whispered quietly.

I turned around to see a pile of boxes in the corner. Each one was delivered here from different places, including several boxes from Egypt. I dared not open any of them for fear that my father would find out that I had been down here.

I turned to look once again at the first bench and noticed several hieroglyphs on the wall to the left of the bench. I saw several symbols that I recognized. I saw a depiction of my father bowing on one knee under the rays of the sun. He was in the act of worshiping.

I was startled to see several depictions of myself on the wall. One depiction showed me also in the act of worshiping under the rays of the sun. Another showed me walking along side the pharaoh as if I were his shadow. One depiction showed me wearing the crown of pharaoh, sitting upon a throne of gold.

I shuddered. A chill ran up my spine as I dropped the flashlight. I knew that my father was serious when he told me that I was the destiny of Egypt. But to know that my father believes me to be a pharaoh?

“I can’t be pharaoh.” I whispered to myself. My breath was heavy. “How can I be pharaoh?” This is ridiculous. There’s no Egypt left to have a pharaoh. “I wont be pharaoh.”

A silent click sounded down the corridor. Someone just opened the door. There was no escape now. I figured that I had better not try to hide either. Maybe now I would get some answers.

The room burst into light as my mother flipped a switch on the wall next to the corridor. She stood there with her arms crossed in her usual disappointed gesture. Her glare pierced my heart. It felt heavy. I had hurt her somehow.

She was wearing her simple brown nightgown. Her hands were quivering, despite the fact that she had them folded in front of her chest. A tear trickled down her cheek. She was neither frowning nor smiling. With a single eyebrow raised she asked;

“Teremut, what are you doing here?”

I knew that a lie would only make the situation worse. I needed to get answers so I might as well be truthful about it.

“Father told me to find something in here...” I couldn’t believe it, I just lied. Why was I so afraid to tell the truth?

“Father kept the door locked.” I gulped. She got me.

“I know … but father told me to pick the lock.”

“Don’t pause.” She took a step forward. “When you lie you must not pause or stutter in your sentences, otherwise they will catch you.”

“What?” I was confused.

“If you are going to lie, you must not get caught in the act of lying.” She walked up to me and stood by my side, only she lifted her gaze from me to the hieroglyphs on the wall. “There may come a day when your life will depend on a lie.”

“Are you encouraging me to lie, Mother?”

“No. I am telling you to be so good at lying that even your mother can’t tell.” She didn’t take her eyes off of the wall, but placed her hand on my shoulder, directing my attention to the hieroglyphs. “We have been trying to teach you this virtue for quite some time now, my son.”

“What?”

“You have reached a new level in your teaching now. Your father has been worrying that you would not take the next step towards your destiny.”

“Wait, what was that step?”

“You went against our mandates and entered this basement. We were afraid that you would be too submissive.”

“You mean this was a test?”

“It was the first question to your real test. You are now ready for the next step.” She breathed in softly. I could hear a small quick sob in her breathing. “My son, what does my Egyptian name of Hafsah means?”

“It means, ‘married to the prophet’ right?”

“And this was no accident.” She waited for a moment. “Your father is a prophet.” She reached out and touched the depiction of father kneeling under the rays of the sun. “Aten, my god, the sun from the sky, has chosen him to bring glory back to Egypt. He has been chosen to bring the rays of the sun back to Egypt.

“The day that you were born, your father went out and knelt in a prayer of thanksgiving to the gods for your birth. The sun was high in the sky. Your father gazed into its depths for a moment. In that moment he received a vision.

“A vision of his son being crowned pharaoh of Egypt. He saw his son leading the armies of Egypt against the Persian empire, then against the Greeks. He saw the banner of Egypt strewn across all the land. A glorious vision indeed delivered to him from Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.”

I now could see the hieroglyphs that depict this vision. There was the Egyptian banner across the middle east, and even partially into the southern portion of Europe.

“A vision of me?” My voice quavered.

“He felt knew it was you, but he never saw your face. Instead he saw the face and body of another.”

“What? Mother, I’m confused.”

“I did not understand myself for several years. He explains his vision as though having seen your soul or spirit dwell inside the body of a pharaoh. In the body of King Tutankhamen to be specific.”

That explains the depiction of me as a shadow walking in the footsteps of a pharaoh. But how?

“Your father has spent the last sixteen years finding a way to make this vision a reality. As you can see here,” she turned away from the hieroglyphs to wave her hand towards the three benches, “he has worked out every possible idea and theory.” She turned to face me for what seemed like the first time of the night. She was crying. “I tried to keep you safe from this vision. I tried, but your father is too adamant.

“He really is the prophet for Aten, my god, the sun from the sky. He loves his god. He made me believe. I tried to keep him from preaching to you. I tried to persuade him to not put you in danger.” she was sobbing now, cradling my head in her arms. “I can’t bear to see you hurt, my son. And now … now I’m going to loose my only son.”

“I’m not going anywhere mother.” I loved her.

“Yes you are, my son.” She sobbed and coughed over her shoulder. “You see, Teremut? Your father must obey the vision given him from Aten, the sun from the sky. He has made astounding progress with his last idea.”

“What is that, mother?”

“Time travel.”

My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe it. I used to think that time travel was just a fairy tail, or some random dream created by the whims of a little child. I have read stories about people using time travel to accomplish heroic feats. But never had I before thought that time travel could be achieved.

Hundreds of possible outcomes raced through my mind. There were theories that strongly suggests that if someone were to send anything into the past, then the dimension in which we live now would vanish as if it never existed. Then there was the more pleasing idea that if something was sent into the past, then a new path of history would unfold, not affecting the current course of time.

Basically I came to the same conclusion that my mother had reached several years ago; if I were to go back into the past, then I would never see my family again. Never.

Both of us have sunk down to our knees on the cold floor of the basement. In the warm embrace of my mother, I wept.

The Diary of Teremut Part 1 - The Glory of Egypt

My name is Teremut Mubarak, but I used to go by the name Terem. And yes, I am writing in English because I am sure that you or a colleague of yours speaks English. Hopefully my servants have followed my orders in placing these scrolls of papyrus into my tomb so that you may have my biography instead of stipulating about what my life was about.

I am not who you think I am. I am not King Tutankhamen, though all the hieroglyphs depict otherwise. The people of Egypt believed me to be their pharaoh because I looked just like the murdered Tutankhamen.

You may not believe this story. Most likely you are now thinking how a thief might have broken into this tomb before you and planted this letter to deceive you. There is no form of evidence that I can give you to persuade you to believe my story, but the knowledge that I posses is much more advanced than any thief would have, and possibly more so than your current technology.

To tell you the truth I was born in the year 2145 A.D. I do not know when you will be reading this, but I hope that it is not too far before the year of my birth. I hope that my being here in Egypt as pharaoh has changed the world for the better.

Let me answer a few questions that you probably have by explaining my life in both the 22nd century and also in the 18th dynasty of the pharaohs of Egypt.

Twenty-second Century

Like I said earlier, I am not sure as to when you will receive this so I do not know at which point your technology is. I will try to explain simply enough.

I was born in a place that we called Florida in what used to be the South Sector of America. My parents were Egyptian by blood who crossed the Atlantic Ocean as refugees after the Great World War of Fire. Egypt was destroyed by a stray nuclear missile, a powerful weapon that rains fire on a nation for months, shortly after my parents migration.

I was tenderly raised listening to stories of the glory days of Egypt. Of the great pharaohs of the old kingdom and of the pyramids of Giza. But there are two specific memories that I recall as if they happened only yesterday.

“The glory of Egypt fell.” my father once said.

“How? When, papa?” I was eager to know. I loved the stories of ancient Egypt and could not fathom the idea that such a great and powerful civilization could fall easily.

“There are many reasons, my son. But one that I lately studied is King Tut.”

“The boy who was pharaoh?”

“Yes. King Tutankhamen.” he paused and closed his delicate eyes. His face was stern. “His name should have stayed as Tutanhaten, in reverence to the true god Aten, my god, the sun from the sky.” He was angry. I couldn’t tell why.

“Hanif, why do you scare the poor child?” my mother scolded from behind the kitchen counter. I still remember the white walls and white boxes that we called appliances. The kitchen was always full of light, night and day.

“Don’t you understand, Hafsah?” he snapped and turned his glaring gaze at my mother. “If I can finish my project, then our son will be …”

“الكلام في المصري” she interrupted in Egyptian. A language that I didn’t understand at the time; I was only ten years old. Now I understand that she said, “Speak in Egyptian!”

“فهو الوحيد الذي يستطيع انقاذ مصر” my father responded, meaning; “Our son is the only one who can save Egypt. He must know what to do when the time comes. And it will.”

“This is your skewed view of what you think Egypt should be. It’s not for the better of the world, let alone for the good of our son.” She continued in Egyptian, her voice reaching a higher pitch than normal.

“Have you not forgotten your heritage, Hafsah? You are Egyptian!”

“I know who I am, and I know my place!” she pointed at herself, “You need to drop your childish dream and return to your place as provider of the family.”

“I am in my place, woman.” He stood up from his chair and started walking towards my mother. My father was angry enough to beat my mother. I didn’t cry though, because I was used to this. My parents had constant arguments throughout my childhood.

He stopped right in front of her, glaring down on her. She was firm for a moment.

“Please Hanif, don’t ensnare your own innocent son in your plot as you have me.” she looked down in submission, “I am with you, but don’t hurt our son.”

“Our son will be a hero in Egypt. Praised by thousands; no, by millions.” he took a deep breath, “This will change the course of history.”

“Just don’t hurt our son.”

“Dad, Mom. What’s wrong?” I usually tried to interrupt their fights.

“Teremut, all is well.” my father responded without lifting his gaze on my mother. He always had to remind her that he was in charge long after she had submitted to him. He was tempting her to say otherwise.

She said nothing. Instead she turned around to finish preparing dinner. I knew that father had gotten his way.

“I think it is time to tell you, my son, how important you are to Egypt.” He was speaking in English again.

“What?”

He walked around the counter and placed his right hand on my shoulder. Something I later realized that was a loving gesture.

“King Tutankhamen was in a position to continue Akhenaten’s empire. He could have expanded Egypt. He could have brought back glory, just like in the Old Kingdom. But he didn’t.”

“What does this have to do with …”

“Listen.” His voice slipped back to being stern. I clamped my mouth shut. “Tutankhamen was controlled by the priest named Ay. Ay convinced Tutankhamen to forget everything that his father created, especially the more correct religion of one god.

“Belief in one god would have brought all of Egypt to a point of change. Tell me, son, was Egypt a large empire?”

He was teaching me again. Our conversations always seemed to turn into lectures of some kind.

“Um. Not as large as other empires like Greece, Rome, or even China.”

“Right. But was Egypt as powerful as the other empires?”

He was looking for an answer. The fun guess-what’s-in-my-head game.

“Egypt was very powerful, father.”

“More so than Greece, Rome, and China.” he leaned down to bring his gaze to my eye-level. “My son, know this. Egypt  would have been more powerful and much larger than the famous United States of America.”

I nodded. I believed him. I still do.

“Remember this, my son.” he placed his right hand over my heart. “Promise me you’ll remember.”

I placed my right hand on top of his. “I promise, father.”

“Egypt grew no more because of the priests.” he took a simple but strong breath. “The priests stopped Egypt. The priests stopped the strong pharaohs. Egypt became prisoner to the priests and their stagnant religion. Beware the priests, my son.”

“Yes, father.”

“It was the priests who manipulated the poor boy pharaoh, King Tutankhamen.” he took his hand off of my chest and turned to look out the window towards the red sunset. His voice trailed off slowly until it was a soft whisper. I had to strain to hear. “His father, Akhenaten, was the last powerful pharaoh who opposed the priests. He had ideas to make Egypt not only as good as the old Kingdom, but better.

“He brought Egypt to believe in one god,  Aten, my lord, my god, the sun from the sky.” he paused to gaze upwards, “He built a new capital city in honor of Aten, my god, the sun from the sky. Akhenaten was strong enough to contend with the priests. He brought change to Egypt.

“The priests have always hated change, and tried to keep it away from Egypt. But change is the only thing that would bring better technology to Egypt. Change is the only thing that would bring new science, new beliefs, more land, and more power.

“Change. Egypt was on the brink of change with Akhenaten, but his son was too weak to keep the change. Tutankhamen let the priests erase the change that could have given glory back to Egypt. The change that could have pleased Aten, my god, the sun from the sky. But instead he grew angry and caused Egypt to be controlled by other nations.”

He stopped. He mouthed only what I could read through his lips, “The glory of Egypt fell.” He was sad. My father always seemed to have a slight bipolar personality, or the sudden changing of emotion.

He kept staring at the sunset. I was sure that he was going to go blind one day due to the fact that he always gazed at the sun. It felt like three minutes waiting for my father continue. I knew the lecture was not over. He had yet to tell me why I was so important to Egypt.

Silence prevailed. Even my mother had stopped making dinner in the kitchen. My insides began to tremble. My left leg started to fidget again. My father was still.

“My son.” He finally broke the silence with a quiet whisper. “You will soon be able to help King Tutankhamen bring the glory that Egypt deserves.”

He turned around to look at me. Tears were in his eyes, but he was smiling. My mother stood in the kitchen entryway. She too was crying. I could tell she had cried about this before because her sobs were weak and controlled.

“My son, do you know why we have named you Teremut?”

I shook my head. I liked my name, but never had I thought there might have been a reason with my name.

“Teremut was a close friend of King Tutankhamen.” He paused as if debating whether or not to tell me something. He sighed, a sign that he has decided to tell me later. “You will soon be a closer friend to the boy King. That is your purpose, my son. This is the destiny of Egypt.”

A sparkle had entered his dark brown eyes. I felt a growing warmth encircle me from within my body. An excitement that I cannot describe with mere words. At that age I believed every word my father spoke, even though I had no idea as to how I would be a close friend to Tutankhamen. I believed my father. He was always so sincere.

“Me?” I pointed at myself. I could barely contain my excitement. I had waited for an opportunity to show the world my worth. I was tired of being the Egyptian nerd at school, or the “weird kid” or the good-for-nothing brown boy.

“Yes, Teremut. You are the destiny of Egypt.”