Six months of heat and sweat have transformed the basin of Afer-An. We have the water, and we have the walls, but a city is more than just a fortress—it is a home, and right now, my people are sleeping in the dirt.
Here is the continuation of our journey, split into thirty moments of our rising empire.
The sun rises over the limestone ramparts. Six months ago, this was a graveyard. Today, the walls of Afer-An stand ten feet high, built from the very rock we blasted through to reach the water.
"The stones are heavy, Zul-An," Kaelen says, wiping grit from his brow. "But we have no timber for roofs. No brick for hearths. The walls protect us from the wind, but the sun is still eating us alive."
I look at the shivering heat haze. He's right. We've exhausted the local quarries. To build houses for a hundred thousand souls, we need more than just mud and hope. We need trade.
I walk toward the Great Cistern. The water is cool and deep, channeled through the stone-covered trenches I designed to prevent evaporation.
Near the runoff, the first "Blue Vats" are bubbling. I spent weeks experimenting with the local desert shrubs and the minerals I found in the deep clay.
"Is the color holding?" I ask a woman named Mara, who is stirring a deep, frothing liquid with a wooden pole.
She lifts a piece of linen. It's a blue so deep it looks like the midnight sky. "It doesn't wash out, my King. Even in the harsh salt-water, the blue remains."
"Good," I say, touching the fabric. "This is our gold. In a world of brown and gray, the wealthy will kill for the color of the sea."
I turn to Kaelen. "Gather the strongest camels. We have nearly fifty now, thanks to the strays and the traders who lost their way. Pack every scrap of blue cloth we have."
"Where are we sending them?" Kaelen asks, tightening the cinch on his mount.
"North," I reply. "To the Great Green Sea. To the ports where the Phoenicians and the Mycenaeans hide from the famine. We need timber, copper, and seed."
"And what about the East?" Kaelen asks, his voice dropping. "What about Egypt?"
I pause. "I will go to Egypt myself. Merneptah's tax collectors are greedy, but his merchants are desperate. They have the cedar we need for the palace and the temple."
We spend three days preparing. I teach the traders the basic phrases of the Libyc-Zul dialect I've been crafting—a language of commerce and survival.
"Remember," I tell the caravan leaders. "You are not beggars. You are the sons of Afer-An. If they ask where the water is, tell them it's a gift from a god they don't know yet."
I lead my small party across the dunes. The journey is easier now that I've established "Waystations"—hidden caches of water along the route, buried in clay jars.
As we cross the border of the Delta, the greenery of the Nile begins to peek over the horizon. It is a shock to the system after months of white sand.
But the Egypt I see is not the Egypt of the postcards. The famine has hit hard. The outskirts are crowded with hollow-eyed peasants and soldiers with rusted spears.
I ride my camel into the bustling market of Memphis. My cloak is the brilliant indigo of our city, and people stop in their tracks to stare at the man wearing the "Sea-Color" in the middle of a drought.
"You there!" a merchant calls out, his eyes widening at my garment. "Where did you get that dye? I will give you ten sacks of grain for the cloak off your back."
"I don't want your grain," I say, my voice steady. "I want cedar. I want limestone. And I want the names of the men who supply the Pharaoh's court."
I spend a week in the shadows of the Great Pyramids, trading our blue dye for architectural scrolls and high-quality bronze tools. I move like a ghost, listening to the gossip of the court.
But I am too bold. A man in a blue cloak stands out like a fire in the night.
In the palace of Pi-Ramesses, a scribe kneels before a man sitting on a throne of gold and lapis lazuli. This is Pharaoh Merneptah, the "Soul of Ra."
"Divine One," the scribe whispers, trembling. "The spies from the western waste have returned. They speak of a miracle."
Merneptah doesn't move. "The Libu are dead. I broke their wells myself."
"They are not dead, Great One," the scribe says. "They have built a city of stone. They have water that never ends, and a leader who calls himself a King. They call him Zul-An."
Merneptah's grip tightens on his crook and flail. "A King? In the land of thirst? How?"
"They are trading a dye, Majesty. A blue more vibrant than the heavens. Our merchants are already whispering that the power of the Nile is shifting to the sand."
The Pharaoh stands, his eyes flashing with the cold light of a man who does not share his world. "No one builds a kingdom in my backyard without my permission."
Back in Memphis, I feel the eyes on me. The atmosphere in the market has changed. The soldiers are no longer looking at my dye; they are looking at my throat.
"We have what we need," I whisper to Kaelen, who has been shadowed by three guards since noon. "We leave tonight. We don't stop until we hit the first Waystation."
"They know, don't they?" Kaelen asks, his hand on his dagger.
"They know," I say. "Merneptah has heard the name of Afer-An. The peace of the desert is over."
We slip out of the city under the cover of a sandstorm, the camels loaded with the materials that will build the first houses of our capital.
As I look back at the fading lights of Egypt, I know I've started a clock I can't stop. The Bronze Age is collapsing, and the most powerful man on earth now knows I have the one thing he lacks: a future.
I smile into the wind. Let him come. I didn't spend 3,000 years of history in books just to be outsmarted by a man who thinks the sun is his father.