Perhaps it was because he held deep reverence for Pharaoh Nitocris, or perhaps because her beauty was enough to utterly captivate Nehekhte.
In any case, once he began speaking of her, the merchant became positively loquacious.
"I once saw her from afar during a procession.
She reclined beneath a canopy made of golden brocade, and even the most splendid golden ornaments could not do justice to her beauty.
She was countless times more radiant than the exquisitely painted goddess Hathor, sacred and inviolable like the great god Horus himself…"
(Hathor is a goddess from ancient Egyptian mythology, the goddess of love and beauty, wealth, dance, and music.
She cares for all living beings, shows compassion for the dead, and is also the protector of mothers and children.
She is the wife of Horus. In ancient Greece, Hathor was often compared to Aphrodite.)
"After the annual flooding of the Nile, she personally goes to the fields to sow grain, leading the people in developing production.
She is a queen with great affinity, and everyone respects her deeply…"
As if trying to fully pour out the admiration in his heart for the female pharaoh Nitocris, Nehekhte rambled on at length.
Alaric, however, did not mind at all, listening with a smile on his face. He too was very interested in this female pharaoh.
Their conversation continued until it was abruptly interrupted by the shouts of a slave.
"Watch out! Watch out! A sandstorm is coming!"
The slave's cry struck like a thunderclap, jolting Nehekhte awake.
Sandstorms are the most terrifying disasters in the desert.
The raging winds whip up walls of sand that blot out the sky, and the fine grains carried within can choke a person to death.
If a sandstorm lasts too long, those who fail to find shelter in time may even be buried alive.
Alaric and Nehekhte looked into the distance.
Under the force of the howling gale, a wall of sand nearly a hundred meters high surged toward them, blotting out heaven and earth.
Taller than high-rise buildings, that terrifying mass of sand was like the gaping maw of a demon, ready at any moment to swallow the caravan whole.
Faced with such a sandstorm, their only means of survival was to find suitable shelter.
Otherwise, their fate would be nothing but burial beneath the sands, eventually becoming dried corpses.
Perhaps thousands of years later, they would be exposed by shifting winds, or unearthed by archaeologists.
Yet they were now deep in the heart of the desert, where could they possibly find proper cover?
"Everyone! Unload the goods from the camels and pile them up right here! Quickly, quickly! Tie the camels down. We'll hide behind the camels and the cargo!"
Nehekhte shouted his orders. The slaves immediately seemed to find their backbone, rushing to restrain the panicked camels and prepare shelter for themselves.
However, after issuing the commands, Nehekhte turned to Alaric with a bitter smile.
"I'm truly sorry, Mr. Thoth. Perhaps the god Set has set his sights on us. I've never encountered a sandstorm of this magnitude before.
These hastily built shelters won't stand a chance. It seems we're going to die together here."
(Set is a god from ancient Egyptian mythology, associated with strength, war, deserts, storms, and foreign lands, and one of the Ennead of Heliopolis.
He protects caravans in the desert, yet also unleashes sandstorms upon them.
He is the second son of Geb and Nut, the father of Anubis.
In his bid for the throne, he schemed to kill his brother Osiris, but was later defeated by his nephew Horus. He is therefore also regarded as an evil god of Egypt.)
Yet Nehekhte suddenly realized that in the face of their dire situation, this Mr. Thoth from a foreign land showed not the slightest trace of panic, as though what lay before them was nothing more than a gentle breeze.
"Don't worry," Alaric said. "As long as I'm here, the wind and sand won't be able to harm us. The god Set cannot kill us."
"Thank you for your comfort, but you still don't understand how terrifying a sandstorm truly is."
Watching the storm draw ever closer, Nehekhte sighed and suddenly became resigned.
"Forget it. Egypt is so chaotic now, if we don't die here, we might die at the hands of desert bandits or those warlords.
Perhaps this is a merchant's fate. It's just a pity that I won't be able to see the beautiful Pharaoh Nitocris one more time."
"Rest assured," Alaric said, patting the man on the shoulder. "You won't die. You will have another chance to see Nitocris, because I said so."
As he spoke, to Nehekhte's astonishment, Alaric stood up and walked out from behind the makeshift barricade of the caravan, moving to the front as if to face the sandstorm head-on.
"Have you lost your mind?" Nehekhte cried out in alarm. "Come back, quickly!"
Yet Alaric merely shook his head and turned to face the oncoming sandstorm.
Driven by the wind, the sandstorm advanced at incredible speed, reaching them in mere seconds.
In an instant, yellow sand filled the air, and visibility dropped to less than ten meters. The scene was like the end of the world.
Ordinarily, in such conditions, a person caught within a sandstorm would find even breathing difficult, let alone surviving.
Yet Nehekhte discovered that this foreign traveler seemed entirely unaffected by the storm.
His lips moved as unfamiliar words poured forth, words Nehekhte had never heard before.
To Nehekhte's ears, the language sounded like a strange buzzing hum.
It was a technique known as "High-Speed Chanting," which allowed lengthy incantations to be recited at several times their normal speed, enabling magic to be cast rapidly in a short span of time.
As the incantation continued, Nehekhte suddenly saw the airflow around Thoth's body defy the direction of the sandstorm's winds, spinning violently.
At first it was only a slight rotation, but it quickly grew into a true tempest.
The storm formed into a sphere, the air spinning at an unimaginable speed, distorting the transparency of the air itself.
Even Thoth's figure became blurred in Nehekhte's vision.
A stinging pain prickled across Nehekhte's face, the result of the storm's sheer velocity, which lashed even those standing at a distance.
Every grain of sand that approached Thoth was hurled outward by the immense centrifugal force of the spherical storm, unable to touch him in the slightest.
At last, Thoth's casting came to an end.
"Legendary spell: Storm Mantle."
In the next moment, the spherical storm that had enveloped only him suddenly expanded outward.
Nehekhte felt a violent gale rush toward him, his robes and nearby objects nearly blown away.
Then, suddenly, all was calm.
The sphere that had once been the size of a single person instantly transformed into a colossal spherical storm with a radius of dozens of meters.
Like an impenetrable shield, the fearsome tempest protected everyone within.
The terrifying sandstorm was completely kept at bay outside the sphere, and the flying sand and stones that had battered the cargo with rattling sounds and stung their faces could no longer harm them at all.
The sandstorm that had threatened to devour heaven and earth was utterly powerless before this spherical storm.
Gazing at the man standing untainted amid the dreadful sandstorm, Nehekhte felt, for a moment, as though he were beholding a god.