# 📚 Introduction to the novel: The decade that began the curse (Thebes - ca. 2130 BC)

The night in Thebes was heavy, as if it were a boulder placed on top of the city. The stars are constants in the front of the sky... and constancy, in the doctrine of Neb-Sedeg-Ra, was nothing but an insult and challenge to his authority.

During the daytime in the city, he appeared in the form of the holy high priest: a bright white linen robe, silence the size of the mountains, and a dull, unrevealing apathy. As for inside his chest...there had been a dark entity that had been growing for years, a solid, unshakable conviction that the ruler on the throne did not even deserve the dirt on which he stepped.

The king - who sat on the throne of Egypt before him - was not stupid in the simple sense, but he was weak in the unforgivable sense: decisions that satisfied the elders and did not save the country, concessions that resembled wisdom but were at their core pure fear, and a footnote that beautified sin and ruin until both became a law to be obeyed.

Neb-Sedeg-Re was watching all of this from his nearby seat: he saw how positions were sold in the corridors of the temple, how free voices were stifled, how caravans left Thebes laden with good things and then returned empty, and how justice was trampled on in the name of “the stability of the kingdom.”

In a closed council one evening, he heard one of the senior leaders say in a trembling tone:
“May God protect the king...the era needs a face that reassures people.”

Neb-Sedeg-Ra almost laughed spittingly. A face that reassures people? Or a face that calms the entourage’s fear of their gains?

Since that night, he no longer saw the throne as a crown and a chair... Rather, he saw it as a “stolen right” that must be recovered.

conspiracy? Yes, conspiracy. But his plotting was not just knives drawn in secret and darkness; It was a conspiracy from the mind of a man who had learned how to enchant minds and subjugate spirits before cities were driven away. He gathered around him a small group with whom he penetrated the palace: a writer who knew where secrets were hidden, a guard commander who knew how to open doors locked in gold, and a young priest who had learned how to remain silent until death.

Then came the day when the tide turned. History has not mentioned—and will never mention—how the established king fell. It fell because Thebes was ready to adopt any story that relieved it of its powerlessness, and it fell because Neb-sedeg-re had something that not all of his opponents possessed: the ability to make crime seem “inevitable.”

When he finally sat on the throne, he did not feel full... rather, he felt short of breath. He could hear the cheers of the public and the applause of the priests, but deep in his ear another voice was echoing, the voice of cold, incisive truth:
*"You will die."*

In the first nights after his coronation, he would wake up terrified, placing his hand on his bare chest to check that his heart was still beating. The fear was not of a deadly dagger creeping in the darkness... but rather of a more horrific nightmare: that his rule would be merely a “short interval” in the book of history, and then be overtaken by annihilation.

From that moment, his real research began.

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### 1. Magic alone is not enough

Neb-sedeg-re had mastered what commoners and priests called "the ultimate in ritual mysteries": great protection spells, rituals of subjugation and domination, the reading of unknown symbols, and the names of ancient gods that terrorized unseen spirits.

Try it all; He tried to prolong his life by extracting toxins from herbs and rituals, to protect his body from the poison, to deter disease before it touched him, and to create an impenetrable aura around his body. But everything he achieved revolved around one goal: **delaying the end**.

As for him... he was not asking for delay, he wanted **cancellation**.

“I will not be king for only a few years.” He said it to himself in his privacy, and then it became his secret prayer that he repeated every night: “I will be a ruler for all time.”

As the days passed, the magic he mastered began to appear in his eyes like children's toys in the face of his grave demand. He opened the door that the ignorant priests fear and the greedy masters desire: the door to summoning lower entities.

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### 2. Conjuring...and wishing

He chose a place that neither the guards nor the priests would dare approach: a cavernous lower hall beneath the ancient temple, floored with black stone tiles that absorbed the light. He ordered his guards and servants to move away, extinguished all the torches except a few, then drew circles and symbols by mixing salt, ash, and metal powder heated with blood.

He was not conjuring up knowledge or protection. He was conjuring up to ask one question only: **"How is time broken?"**

When the lines of the magic circle were completed, the air of the lobby suddenly changed. No wind was blowing, but the temperature dropped to a terrifying degree, as if the place suddenly remembered that death was near.

Then he heard a whisper coming out of the emptiness and darkness, not from a throat or a mouth.

An entity appeared at the edge of the dim light: it could not be seen completely, but its presence was felt as a tremendous pressure that was about to break bones. He did not come with a specific face or body; It came as a shadow that formed and collapsed, as if it refused to give the viewers a fixed shape.

Neb-sedeg-re said in a piercing voice, knowing that the slightest hesitation here would mean his ruin:
[In hieroglyphics: “I want a path that has no limits.”]

The entity laughed a short, joyless laugh, which echoed in the corners of the stone.

[In the language of the great priests: “Sekhem-akh, Neter-Aa!” - “What greedy soul addresses the shadow!”]

Then he spoke in a voice that penetrated the mind directly:
[In hieroglyphics: “And what do you want? Or let me guess... I see deep down that you are asking for something great, something that no clay creature has ever achieved, right?”]

Neb-Sedeg-Ra: [in hieroglyphs: “I want to rule all time... and to return whenever I am finished.”]

There was a heavy silence...then the entity said a phrase that fell like an arrow:
[In hieroglyphics: “I don’t have your request...but I can guide you to something.”]

The entity bowed slightly, and the tone of its voice lowered:
[In hieroglyphs: “There is a book that has no name. It is not given, it is not inherited, and it is not held as things are held. It is the one who chooses its owner.”]

Neb-sedeg-re took a step into the shadows without blinking:
[In hieroglyphs: "Where is he?"]

Here the entity's voice became lowered, as if every letter that came out was worth a drop of blood:
[In hieroglyphics: “I will not tell you ‘where’.. I will tell you ‘how he approaches you’.. Your dark destiny is what will bring you to him.”]

Before he could ask him more, the sound and pressure suddenly cut off, as if someone had shut down

A massive door stood before him. But the lower hall was no longer the same.

On the black stone before him, fine lines began to appear on their own—as if an unseen finger of fire were carving them: a small map… not of cities or regions, but a roadmap into the unknown. It wasn't complete, and it didn't give him the treasure ready-made, but it gave him a direction, coordinates, and a glimpse that ignited his obsession.

Nib-Sedig-Ra knelt and redrawn the lines with his hand on a parchment he had prepared so they wouldn't be lost, memorizing them as a priest memorizes the name of his god. A dangerous joy shone in his eyes: the joy of a hunter seeing the first trace of his prey.

3. The Journey… and Reaching the Goal. He left at night without telling any of his guards. He carried with him only a small dagger, a water jug, and some incantations written on old parchment. He crossed the banks of the Nile where the moonlight faded, then plunged deeper into the desolate desert where the sand stretched longer than words could express.

The journey was, at its core, a test of his mental fortitude: nights when the absolute silence of the desert haunted his dramatic composure, days when he concealed his tracks so no one would follow him, and long periods when a single question plagued him: "Am I being led to my doom... or am I the one who controls destiny?"

One pitch-black night, he spotted a huge snake crossing his path. He didn't kill it, nor did he retreat... he simply stood his ground until the creature had passed, as if they had agreed, without words, that this path could only be opened by one who never blinked.

As he neared the spot indicated by the map, he began to hear what ordinary ears cannot perceive: a faint humming that vibrated in the air, like a bowstring being drawn very slowly.

He finally reached the entrance of a cave that emerged from towering black rocks, as if they had been burned in an ancient inferno and had yet to cool. The cave was terrifying because it was quieter than any place on Earth should be: no birds, no insects, no sign of any form of life.

He stopped at the last marker on his map and confirmed: this was the place.

4. The Long-Awaited Encounter
He entered the cave. The passage wasn't straight, but a short labyrinth of narrow turns, designed to force the entrant to lose their bearings and sense of time.

At the very bottom, the space suddenly opened onto a circular stone chamber with a platform of volcanic rock in its center. On the platform... something absorbed the surrounding light.

The Black Book.

It wasn't a book of papyrus or cheap leather; its cover was dark and polished, with delicate gold decorations on its edges, unlike anything man-made. A palpable sense of "pulse" emanated from it: as if the cover were breathing slowly and steadily.

Nib-Sedig-Ra reached out eagerly... then stopped mid-air. For the first time since becoming king, he felt he wasn't the supreme being in the place.

This time, the voice came directly from within his skull, harsher and more severe than before:

[In the language of the great priests: "Ka-metr, khasif-nitr! - Everything has a price... Are you ready?"]

Nib-sedig-ra swallowed slowly and said to himself—soundlessly—that he would not back down, for hesitation was a slow death.

The voice (or the inhabitant of the book) spoke as if weighing his will:

[In hieroglyphs: "Speak your mind frankly."]

Neb-sedeg-re: [In hieroglyphs: "I want to rule the ages... I want to be above end and annihilation."]

A short silence followed, then came the sentence that formed the curse:

[In hieroglyphs: "Will you be prepared for the price?"]

Then he began to explain the strict law:

Power is taken in installments.

Each installment is taken directly from your soul.

Even when the oath and covenant are complete... the servant retains only what is permitted to him.

Because every dark pact requires a condition to ensure its survival through the ages, the entity stipulated the condition for return and resurrection:

[In hieroglyphs: "Your resurrection will not be through your own efforts alone... It will be through a pure vessel of your lineage. You will not pursue it, nor search for it... When its magical mark is complete, it will find its way to you of its own accord, and with its arrival, you will rise from your deep slumber."]

Here—at this very moment—the true nature of Neb-Sedeg-Ra was revealed. He did not ask, "Is this injustice?" nor did he say, "Is there an easier way?" Instead, he asked the question that revealed his absolute readiness to sell:

[In hieroglyphs: "And when do I begin?"]

The answer came like a hidden, mouthless smile:

[In hieroglyphs: "When you lay down your hand... and accept the covenant."]

This time, he extended his hand without the slightest hesitation.

When his fingers touched the polished black casing, he felt as if something boiling had penetrated the depths of his soul, not his skin—as if a great door had opened within him, and a terrifying power, unlike that of men, had entered.

Neb-Sedig-Ra emerged from the cave, not the man who had entered it. He emerged believing he possessed the path, when in reality, he had become merely a part of the path. And thus began the curse of Neb-Sedig-Ra.