Chapter III: The Imperial Temptation

Overview

The Pride had never been offered so much. Funding, fortresses, free passage, royal protection and the ability to act openly in the light of day. Every Maahes of this age was tempted by it, and most of them understood the price: a Pride that lives on a king's patronage serves the king.

Eleven Maahes held the line. One did not. The story of how Userhat-Seti accepted a royal office, how the Children of Apep used it, and how the Pride tore itself apart to recover is the core of this chapter. It is the reason the Maahes holds no throne, no office and no title of state, and every Maahes after the age was taught why.

The Shape of the Age

I. The Rising (c. 1556 to 1384 BCE)

Four Maahes rode the rise of the empire. They followed the armies into Nubia and the northern lands, reopened the roads to the groves, and built a quiet network of safe houses in the great new town of the tomb-builders. The resin came back in full, and with it came the longest lives the Pride had seen in a century.

II. The Golden Trap (c. 1382 to 1236 BCE)

At the height of imperial power, three Maahes held the mantle through its most prosperous years, and its most dangerous. Takhat-Mut set the rule that would define the mantle forever. Tia-Nefert filled the Pride's stores to overflowing. Merymose-Ka held Memphis quietly while the court moved north. The Pride had never been richer. It had never been more exposed.

III. The Fall and the Purge (c. 1234 to 1070 BCE)

One Maahes broke the rule. The Pride almost broke with him. A purge, a manhunt and a collapse followed, and the age ended with a weakened Pride, a crumbling empire and a Maahes who had to keep the southern posts alive on almost nothing.

The Lion's Tears in This Age

For roughly the first three centuries of the chapter, the resin flowed freely. The Pride's convoys could travel openly under the empire's protection, and by the middle of the age, the Pride's stores held more of the Lion's Tears than at any other point in history.

The groves themselves were tended by the grove-keepers, a small number of families in Punt and the highlands who had sworn since the first age to guard the trees and release the resin only to the Pride. Their oaths were the most sacred in the order, and the most vulnerable. When those oaths were corrupted, as they were in the age of Userhat-Seti, the supply failed almost overnight.

After the purge, the resin never returned to its former level in this chapter. The last four Maahes of the age held the mantle with Partial, Low or no supply.

The Children of Apep in This Age

The Children of Apep had spent the Fracture hiding in the margins. In this age, they learned how to use power rather than just feed on its absence. They moved into the court, the temple and the army, always in the shadow of whoever held authority.

Their great success was Userhat-Seti. They did not corrupt him. They did not need to. They simply waited for the Pride to hand them an office, and then used it. The lesson the Pride took from this was not that the brood was clever, but that a Pride's greatest weakness is its own comfort.

Why This Age Matters

This is the chapter where the Maahes became what it is today. Before Takhat-Mut, the mantle was a role. After Userhat-Seti, it was a vow. Every rule in the modern Pride, from the refusal of titles to the once-a-generation recitation, can be traced to the lessons of this age.

It is also the first chapter in which the Maahes can fail. The earlier ages showed the mantle surviving collapse, famine and exile. This one shows it failing from within, and being recovered only by the people who had the courage to admit it.