Khemu

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"You are a child of both Egypt and Greece. You are proof they don’t hate each other."

―Bayek to Khemu

Khemu (c. 56 BCE–49 BCE) was the Egyptian son of Bayek, the Medjay of Siwa, and his wife Aya. During his life, he enjoyed an idyllic childhood with his parents. His father mentored him in the ways of the Medjay and in vital skills such as hunting.

In 49 BCE, Khemu was taken hostage by the Order of the Ancients as a means of forcing his father to unlock the Siwa Vault under the Temple of Amun for them. When the two resisted, the boy was slain by Flavius Metellus, one among the Order, who redirected Bayek's knife into his son's heart.

Khemu's demise became the pivotal event that led to the foundation of the Assassin Brotherhood. His grief-stricken parents mercilessly hunted down each and every last member of the Order they knew from 49 BCE to 47 BCE, a vengeful journey that became embroiled in the wider political conflicts of the waning Ptolemaic dynasty and would culminate in the rise of the Hidden Ones, the first generation of Assassins.

Biography

Conception

In c. 56 BCE, Khemu was conceived by the Medjay of Siwa, Bayek, and his partner, Aya while the two were hiding from an assassin in Bayek's old desert training grounds. This assassin, Bion, sought to extinguish the last remnants of the Medjay bloodline on behalf of Raia, a member of the Order of the Ancients. After killing Bayek's father, Sabu, Bion discovered that Aya was pregnant and so targeted her and Bayek next. The lovers managed to eliminate their would-be murderer, however, and Khemu was born months later.

Owing to their love and duty to Egypt, his parents named him Khemu after the Egyptian word for their nation, Kemet. Because of the half-Greek heritage of his mother, Khemu was seen by his father as a child of both Egypt and Greece, a living proof that the two peoples could coexist in love and harmony.

Childhood

Growing up in the remote oasis town of Siwa, Khemu enjoyed a peaceful life with his loving parents. His father devoted much of his time and attention to rearing him, instilling in him the values of the Medjay with the expectation that he would one day inherit the mantle as Bayek did from his own father.

Khemu's best friend was Chenzira who sometimes went hunting with him and his father.

Stars of the gods

On many nights, his father took him to the circle of stones on the outskirts of Siwa. There, Bayek taught Khemu the constellations of the Egyptian deities and the ideals they each symbolized. Because his grandfather had once said that these stars reveal not just the gods' place in the world but that of every individual as well, the ecstatic boy declared that he would someday visit every Stone Circle along with the Great Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza. These words were forever etched into Bayek's mind, and he vowed to fulfill this dream of Khemu after his death.

From night to night beneath the stars, Khemu would share many personal thoughts, feelings, and questions about life with his father while Bayek would invoke a god thematically related to his quandaries or the lesson at hand.

Through Amun, he taught him that though Egyptian society had declined in the name of greed over honor, the Medjay shall always endure to restore justice to Egypt. Through the Divine Lion, he praised his progress in combat training while reminding him that the duty of the Medjay as warriors who fight only when it was right to do so. He echoed these themes once more via the constellation of the Scales, which he explained measures truth and justice, the two crowning principles of the Medjay.

Once, Khemu heard a priest at the temple schools proclaim that the Greeks were destroying Egypt, and he became concerned about the ethnic strife between Egyptians and Greeks. In light of this, Bayek showed him the stars of the the Great Twins and assured him that he was proof that the two peoples could love one another and that every individual regardless of heritage had the capacity for good or evil.

When Khemu's friend Kenon told him that "what is best in life" was to conquer one's enemies and revel in their women's suffering, he relayed the question back to his father. Pointing to the constellation of Apis, Bayek instead taught him that the answer was to protect the poor and vulnerable, seek truth and justice, live a life of honor, and to be a loving son to his mother.

First crush

Khemu developed an early crush on a female friend, an affection intense enough that it pained him to feel it. Whether out of disinterest or shyness, the girl's behavior towards him eventually shifted, and she began to avoid him. Inexperienced with love, Khemu confided in his father about her despite initially denying that he liked her. On one occasion while gazing at the stars of the Goat Fish, Bayek suggested that the girl's sudden aloofness may actually be a sign of reciprocation, but otherwise, he felt unqualified to explain the mysteries of love to his son, instead directing him to Hathor. He expressed that no gods, not even Serqet, can protect humans from the agony that love may bring.

Death

In 49 BCE, the Order of the Ancients kidnapped Khemu and Bayek, bringing both of them to the Siwa Vault beneath the Temple of Amun. Believing Bayek to have knowledge regarding the vault and how to open it, the Order interrogated the Medjay for answers before being interrupted by the arrival of Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII.

Khemu used the confusion to free his father, who attacked the members before being subdued. Amidst the confusion, Flavius redirected Bayek's knife into his own son's heart, who succumbed to his wound almost immediately. After his death, his body was buried in a tomb in the Mountain of the Dead.

Legacy

Despite his short life, Khemu's death triggered a series of events which would result in the founding of the Hidden Ones, a secretive cabal which later evolved into the Assassin Brotherhood.

Following Khemu's murder, both Bayek and Aya embarked on a quest for vengeance against the Order of the Ancients. By 47 BCE, most of the Order's members in Egypt had been assassinated, with only Lucius Septimius and Flavius Metellus, Khemu's murderer, remaining. While Aya went after Septimius, Bayek pursued Flavius to Cyrene. Bayek confronted the Roman Consul in the Temple of Zeus in Cyrene and, despite Flavius taking advantage of an ancient relic of the gods, killed him. In the void, Khemu asked his father to let go of him before he rubbed the feather against Flavius, putting him to peace and satisfying Bayek's quest for vengeance.

The eagle skull necklace worn by Khemu, and later by his father, would later serve as the "template" from which the Assassin insignia was derived.

Personality and characteristics

Unlike his friends and family, Khemu was shown to be frequently afraid and doubted he would be able to live up to his father legacy as a Medjay, as shown when he was not able to jump off the cliff at Halma Point, despite with his father's urging.

Gallery

• 
  Concept art of Khemu
• 
  Khemu's tomb in the Mountain of the Dead
• 
  Khemu on a Discovery Tour through Alexandria

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Desert Oath (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Origins