by Jerry Dubs
Leaning her weight against his heaving chest, she looked at him with a mock, quivering frown on her face. “It will be so touching. Your devotion to the king will be celebrated in song. They’ll talk about you forever. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To be immortal?”
Turning his head away from her as far as possible, Imhotep said, “I’ll never ... ”
Merneith grabbed his face with a hand and digging her nails into his cheek, she turned his head forward. Her face was a tight mask of anger.
She hissed, “Yes, you will. You will admit that you saw your son kill King Sekhemkhet and in return, I’ll let Maya and Meryt be my slaves.
“If you don’t do what I say, then I’ll kill Maya while you and Meryt watch. Then I’ll kill Meryt. Slowly and painfully. Maybe I’ll have a company of soldiers use her like a whore until she dies from bleeding, thrusting, tearing exhaustion, all while you watch.”
Releasing his face, she sat upright and smiled.
“No, Imhotep,” she said in a satisfied voice. “I think you’ll do exactly what I want.”
Entombed
Imhotep lay on a worn, wooden table. Four soldiers guarded him, but he didn’t see them. His constant companions for forty days, the soldiers were invisible to him now as he lay in the mortuary temple of the god Anubis.
On a second table off to his right sat King Sekhemkhet’s alabaster sarcophagus.
Imhotep had designed it during the strange, disorienting days just after King Djoser had died and Prince Teti had become King Sekhemkhet. The new king and Imhotep had spent an evening reminiscing about King Djoser, drinking beer – King Sekhemkhet was a prodigious beer drinker – and planning the young king’s eternal resting place.
King Sekhemkhet had held an alabaster goblet in front of an oil lamp and watched the light bring the cold, pale, yellow mineral to life. Half drunk, still mourning his father, uncertain of how he would rule the Two Lands, King Sekhemkhet had stared at the way the light penetrated the translucent stone, revealing darker veins within, illuminating swirls and pockets of imperfections which only made the cup more interesting.
“I want my sarcophagus made of this,” the king announced, his eyes mesmerized by the light and stone. “My ka will be the light, passing through the alabaster, making it glow and gaining strength from it.”
Although he had no idea if alabaster could be found in large enough chunks to create a sarcophagus, Imhotep had nodded agreement. He had learned long ago to acquiesce to the demands of kings, especially drunken kings, and attempt to modify them later.
So he had designed the coffin and then sent men east across the desert to the quarries where alabaster was found. To his relief, they had returned with several pieces of alabaster large enough to serve as King Sekhemkhet’s sarcophagus.
The finished coffin was made from a single stone, painstakingly hollowed out and smoothed to create a long box – large enough to hold a man’s enshrouded body – open only on one end. A thin slab of alabaster served as a sliding portcullis that fit through a slot at the top of the open end and slid through grooves to seal the glowing coffin.
The sarcophagus rested beside Imhotep now, its sliding panel raised to receive the wrapped mummy of King Sekhemkhet. A rough wooden box, little more than a trough, lay on the floor beside the polished alabaster sarcophagus.
Imhotep had watched the crude wooden coffin being dragged into the mortuary room a few minutes ago. He had realized with a shiver that the box was where his living, breathing mummy would soon be placed.
On a third table, on the other side of the alabaster sarcophagus, lay the body of King Sekhemkhet, its skin darkened and wrinkled from long exposure to the natron salts.
Four canopic jars representing the four sons of Horus stood by the table. Imsety, green-bodied, human-headed guardian of the king’s liver, decorated one of the jars. A second jar, holding the king’s lungs, was painted with the image of the god Hapi in his form as a yellow baboon. The third and fourth jars were decorated with Duamutef, black-headed jackal, who guarded King Sekhemkhet’s stomach, and Qebehsenuef, bearing his father’s hawk head, who stood watch over the king’s intestines.
No gods would watch over Imhotep. Wrapped in linen and laid, still breathing, in the wooden coffin, Imhotep would die slowly, alone in the dark tomb.
***
“Drink this,” Rudamon said an hour later, handing Imhotep a dark wooden cup.
His body thin from fasting and filthy from being prohibited from bathing, Imhotep weakly raised himself to an elbow and extended a shaking hand to take the cup.
“Don’t you want to know what it is?” Rudamon asked. Although dressed in the formal robe of a priest of Anubis, its hem lined with black fur, Rudamon didn’t wear a jackal’s mask like the other priests in the mortuary temple.
In answer, Imhotep put the cup to his mouth and drank all of the potion. When he lowered the cup, a few drops of the tea-colored liquid dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Ignoring them, Imhotep lay back on the table, letting the cup fall to the stone floor.
Rudamon bent to pick up the empty cup. “It was mandrake,” he said in answer to the question Imhotep hadn’t asked. “It will make you sleep.” Leaning close, Rudamon laid a hand on Imhotep’s arm and whispered, “Don’t worry, old friend.”
Ignoring him, Imhotep closed his eyes, inviting sleep, hoping that it would deepen into a peaceful coma from which he would never rouse, never revisit his own, dark thoughts.
To protect Maya and Meryt, he had done exactly as Merneith had demanded. He had confessed that he had witnessed Tjua killing King Sekhemkhet. He had announced that as penance and to earn forgiveness he would accompany the king into the tomb and stand guard over him for eternity.
He had not been allowed even a moment with Maya or Meryt. Rudamon had whispered assurances that they were healthy and alive, but his sad eyes cautioned Imhotep not to ask more.
Once, while sitting beside the stone bath where King Sekhemkhet’s body lay immersed in natron crystals, Imhotep thought that he had heard Ahmes’ voice coming from another room. But as soon as he had raised his head toward the voice, two of the constant guards stepped in front of him.
Isolated, weary and depressed, he had held on to a small hope that he would be rescued. He had many friends in the palace and the priesthood, friends who knew him and his family well enough to know that Tjau could never have killed the king and that Imhotep would never abandon Meryt and Maya.
But now as the day of King Sekhemkhet’s entombment approached, Imhotep had resigned himself to his fate. To fight it would only endanger Meryt and Maya and raise false hopes within himself.
Eyes closed, he felt his arms grow weary, his legs heavy. He turned his head and forced open his eyes. The alabaster sarcophagus, its lucent surface wavering in the torchlight as if it were made of flowing gold, filled most of Imhotep’s view. He saw shadowy movement beyond it and realized that it was the costumed priests of Anubis approaching the body of the king, ready to prepare him for eternity.
Imhotep knew that once the priests had finished with the king, they would turn their attention to him. They would cross his arms over his chest and swaddle him with layers of linen, leaving only a small opening beneath his nose so that he could breathe.
He imagined the soldiers standing there, watching as he was wrapped, verifying that Merneith’s orders were being followed. Then they would be chased from the temple as Nimaasted, jackal-head mask over his head, inscribed sacred prayers on the king’s linens, protecting the remains and pleading for a successful reincarnation.
Then Imhotep’s linens would be painted, but with curses dooming his ka to eternal wandering in the red desert, never to feel the shade of the date palms, never to drink the cooling water, never to hear the songs or watch the dancers in the Eternal Field of Reeds.
Closing his weary eyes, Imhotep turned his head away and hoped that Rudamon had been kind enough to prepare a deadly potion of mandrake. He preferred that the drug would stop his b
reathing so that he would die in a few minutes while he was being wrapped. Otherwise he would live for a week or more wrapped in linens, unable to move, dirtying himself while he slowly and painfully dehydrated and died.
He had tried to fast his way to death, but discovered that his spirit was too weak. His body betrayed his mind by giving in to hunger pangs or thirst. He told himself that it was because he refused to give up hope; there was a chance that Siptah would stage a coup and rescue him. Or that he would awake from this nightmare and find that he had been slumbering like Rip Van Winkle against the low wall around the Step Pyramid, having fallen asleep seventeen years ago and dreamt a great adventure.
Rudamon was speaking again, the sound of his voice bringing Imhotep back to the present, but the words were indistinct, arriving to Imhotep through suddenly viscous air that dampened all meaning from the words until only muffled sounds remained. He thought he heard the word alabaster, but when he tried to understand, he found that it took too much effort.
Training his thoughts on Meryt he let darkness overtake him.
***
Imhotep dreamed that he was back in the United States, in Pennsylvania visiting Penn’s Cave. Instead of a power boat, he was riding in a canoe as unseen paddlers silently guided the boat through the black water of the cave.
Although in a watery cave, the air was strangely dry. Despite the subterranean darkness, the air glowed like honey. And even though the water was glassine, his canoe rocked as if riding small waves. In the distance he heard a guide, but the words, spoken in a sing-song cadence, were harsh and impossible to understand.
In his dream he opened his eyes to see a dark ceiling of stone above him.
Although the canoe had stopped moving, the rocks overhead pressed closer. Soon the stones were so close that he could feel them push against him. Lying helpless in the canoe he felt the stones slowly settle their weight on him, conforming to the shape of his face, the curve of his chest, the bend of his legs.
Suffocating, he woke from his nightmare only to find that he couldn’t open his eyes. He tried to raise his hands to his face, but they were restrained, crossed over his chest, held firmly in place. He tried to scream, but his jaw was tightly bound and he couldn’t open his mouth.
Panicking, he tried to take a deep breath, but there was no space for his chest to expand.
Then he smelled incense and heard a dry rattle, the sound of sistrums. He recognized the smell and sound of a funeral.
Rudamon didn’t give me a lethal dose of mandrake. I’m wrapped as a mummy and being placed inside the pyramid beside King Sekhemkhet’s sarcophagus.
He tried to compose himself, to stay calm.
Why? I should kick and twist and fight.
But he knew that he could never escape. He was bound by yards and yards of tightly wrapped linen. He couldn’t even twitch a finger. He couldn’t take a deep breath, he couldn’t even blink an eye.
There would be no kicking, no twisting, no fighting, just a slow and painful death.
Even if I did manage to wriggle enough to disrupt the funeral, he thought, no one would come to help me. Merneith might smile at my pain. King Khaba would be pleased. And if I did enough to upset them, they would make Maya and Meryt pay for my disruption.
And so he lay quiet and unmoving, fighting the terror that enveloped him, hoping that this last act of love would help his wife and daughter survive.
Soon the smell of incense faded. The sound of the sistrums and the shuffling of feet on stone ceased. Although wrapped in linens, Imhotep sensed a darker darkness. The torches that had accompanied the mourners were gone and the stone opening that admitted them to the pyramid had been plugged.
He was alone in the dark beneath a mountain of unyielding stone.
Despite the tight wrappings, he shivered with fear.
***
There was no way to measure the passage of time, no change of light, no rustling of reeds along the river, no breeze lifting and dropping flapping palm fronds, no honking geese, no smell of cook fires, no sound of footsteps as workers passed on their way to kilns or quarries, no conversations of women on their way to the market, no cries of infants, no laughter of children.
He lay unable to move, his mind slowing as he fought to shut down thoughts of Maya and Meryt. During the forty days of waiting, he had replayed the scene at the Temple of Neith, remembering each slice of Tjau’s last moments, trying to wear down the memory until its sharp edges ceased to cut his soul.
Trying to distract himself from his memories now, Imhotep wondered if there were rats in the tomb and if there were, would they be able to eat through the windings to attack him and would he have strength enough to fight them. Perhaps there were spiders. Or snakes or scorpions.
He slept and woke again, fighting for breath, panicking anew as he realized where he was and what was happening to him.
To help himself ignore the hunger that refused to go away, he decided to picture the face of each person he had known, recalling the sound of their voices, the lilt of their laughter, the flash of their eyes.
He started with Meryt, easily remembering the first time he had seen her. She had been standing along the water’s edge in the delta near Iunu. It had been dawn and she had been smearing herself with mud, eager to feel the change on her skin as Re arose and began to dry the mud. She had been so full of life and curiosity. He had been amused at her innocent enthusiasm and then, to his surprise, he had discovered that he wanted to share that enthusiasm for the world he had found himself in.
Her face had changed little in the seventeen years they had been together. Her body, too, was still thin and waif-like. And her touch ...
He squeezed his eyes tight, one of the small movements he could still do.
No, he would think of another: Of Hetephernebti, her regal bearing, her face so much like her brother’s. He would think of her and her unwavering kindness and friendship, not of Meryt. Or he would think of Paneb, the first person he had met in the Two Lands, an artist like himself. He would think of Paneb or his wife Taki, so full of love and generosity, or their son Ahmes.
Ahmes!
For the first time, Imhotep realized that he had started the awful chain of events that had led to King Djoser’s knife being used to implicate Tjau in the murder of King Sekhemkhet.
He had given Djoser’s knife to Ahmes to hide, not knowing that Ahmes was living in Zau and close to Merneith. Seeing the knife must have given her the idea to use it in the assassination, to have evidence to blame Tjau for the killing. Tjau’s unexpected attempt to interrupt the attack had simply played into their hands.
I put the idea and weapon into Merneith’s hands, he realized.
Rudamon should have given me a lethal dose of mandrake. I can’t live with my thoughts.
***
A scratching sound.
No, Imhotep thought, a grating sound. Stone on stone.
He smiled to himself, a movement he could make now. As he had lost weight, the linen wrappings had become slightly looser. He smiled because he knew the sound was a hallucination. He had been having them for ... he didn’t know ... for hours, days, weeks? He remembered dreams that had seemed to last forever, but that had happened during a short nap. He knew that he had no idea how much time had passed since he had been placed in the tomb.
The sound came again. Closer, right by his head.
Air washed over him, clean air, not the fetid air that had surrounded him since he had entered the tomb.
Something pulled on his shoulder, then his other shoulder. His world moved, no, he was moving, sliding, being pulled.
“Help me,” he tried to say, his jaw finding a small slack in the cloth, his lungs trying to force air faster than a breath, his lips trying to form the words.
The hands repositioned themselves and then another set joined them. Two people were holding him now. He felt pressure on his back and his upper legs. He was being lowered. How was that possible, he wondered. He thought he had been lyi
ng on the ground.
Who are you? He wondered. Speak! Someone say something. Are you here to kill me?
But there was only silence.
He smelled something now, not his own dank smell, but something he knew. Paint! It was paint. And another sound, the rustle of dry leaves. But muffled, too muffled for him to identify.
Stone grating again and now a whispered, joyful shout.
They are tomb robbers, he realized with a sinking spirit. They’ve come to carry away the golden rings, the gems, the oils and the knives and the spears and everything that was meant to accompany King Sekhemkhet to his eternal life.
Perhaps they’ll unwrap me as well, looking for necklaces or rings.
Suddenly the hands were on him again, lifting him from the ground and carrying him, swaying with each step. He realized that there must have been torchlight, because the lighter grayness suddenly was gone and his world was blacker than black again. And then he was lowered to the ground.
Stone grated on stone again and all was quiet.
Section Six
THE BURIED PYRAMID
2022
Saqqara, Egypt
Resurrected
Ahmes knelt beside the mummy and put his ear close to its wrapped face. Holding his breath he listened intently for a whisper of air from the man beneath the bindings.
We should have checked to make sure that he was alive before we opened the false door, Ahmes thought as he pressed his ear against the mouth of the wrapped face.
Raising his head, he listened for sounds from the other side of the wall: the scuffling of bare feet on stone or the shouts of guards. There was only silence; silence from beyond the wall, silence from the body encased in the wrappings.