by Jerry Dubs
I should have brought a miner’s helmet, he thought as he shifted the flashlight from one hand to the other.
He leaned against the wall and aimed the flashlight’s narrow beam down the tunnel. He didn’t see any cave-ins or piles of rubble. Or snakes or scorpions or jackals hiding in the darkness.
Crawling forward, the backpack scraping against the low ceiling of the tunnel, he thought, I didn’t plan this very well.
As the tunnel started to slope more steeply Tim tried to remember how far in the two tunnels intersected and he began to wonder why Bata couldn’t have chosen an easier rendezvous point.
He crawled on, sweating and wishing he was wearing pants and knee pads or even just a loincloth, anything else would be easier to crawl in than a robe. After every step he had to stop and tug at the material to give himself room to move his knees forward. He tried to pull the bottom of the robe up over his hips and knot it there, but he didn’t have room to tie the gathered material, and so he released it and it soon found its way to his knees again.
Soon the tunnel began to veer left and get narrower. Tim’s backpack was not just scraping along the ceiling now, it was getting hung up. He lay flat in the sandy floor and began to wiggle the backpack off his shoulders.
His face pressed into the dirt as he struggled, he felt something slowly slide across his cheek. He tried to swipe at his face, but the straps of the half-removed backpack pinned his arms to his side.
He shook his head and felt the movement across his cheek speed up and then pause. The flashlight was pointed away from him, illuminating the uneven walls and rough ceiling of the tunnel ahead.
Clenching his teeth, he tried to still himself. He remembered the endless hours trapped in the alabaster sarcophagus, unable to move. This is nothing, he told himself as the movement on his cheek began again.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the bite or the pinch or the sting or whatever was about to happen. The movement picked up pace, curling over his cheek toward his mouth. As he remembered horror stories of spiders crawling inside people’s mouths while they slept, the movement dissolved as the salty bead of sweat ended its slow roll against his mouth.
He lay still for a moment longer, unable to believe he had just tormented himself over a drop of sweat.
Then he finished shrugging the backpack from his shoulders. His arms free, he wiped his face, tugged the backpack alongside him and then, pushing the pack ahead, he continued his slow crawl into the past.
He encountered the first small cave-in a minute later.
It can’t be much farther, he thought as he pulled the small shovel from his backpack and started to scrap away at the pile of sand that had fallen in from the right side of the tunnel. Awkwardly he dug the blade of the shovel into the sand and swept it past him. Pausing, he adjusted the flashlight’s beam to show the tunnel ahead. It looked as if the left wall became smooth just a few feet ahead.
The false door, he thought.
He attacked the sand, digging, pulling, releasing and digging again. When the opening looked large enough, he pushed the shovel through the opening, pushed the backpack through and began to pull himself through.
Ten feet farther to go, eight feet more, he continued crawling, pushing the shovel and backpack ahead, sliding his flashlight ahead and then moving himself.
Now he was close enough to see that the left wall was no longer rough rock and sand, but the smooth, regular surface of a false doorway. He closed his eyes, relieved that he had remembered the correct tunnel.
Moving with more confidence and determination, he closed the last few feet to the door.
Unlike the false doorway in the Tomb of Ipy and the doorway in King Sekhemkhet’s tomb, this one was shorter. Expediency had overruled design, Tim remembered. The tunnels, like most of the burial complex, had been unfinished when King Djoser died and so the work had been hurried. And so the tunnels had been smaller.
Pulling himself even with the doorway, Tim examined the sides, top and bottom of the stone wall. There was no missing stone, however the sides and bottom were covered with dirt and sand.
He pushed the backpack farther up the tunnel and rested the flashlight atop it so that it was directed at the door. Grabbing the small shovel he began to clear the dirt from around the doorway.
As he worked he thought about Akila and what he was giving up to return to the past. She was intelligent, caring, and beautiful. She was a doctor, she would be welcomed anywhere in the world. If they wanted they could leave Egypt, putting aside the immediacy of his history, the pain of her past.
They could live in Europe or they could move to the United States or they could retreat to a Caribbean island where they could forget their pasts and live among palm trees, cooling breezes by the sea.
She was waiting, he knew, at the end of the tunnel. He imagined her pacing, fighting her desire to enter the tunnel and persuade him to stay here in the modern world or to take her along to the distant past.
He could back away from this doorway. Bata and Meryt and whichever of his friends remained alive in the Two Lands would understand. They must know that placing the papyrus in the tunnel of the Buried Pyramid was not a sure way to communicate. They would know that it was possible that this tunnel was buried and this doorway inaccessible.
They would be disappointed, but they would accept his failure to push through the false door in front of him.
Then, closing his eyes, he thought of Meryt’s bravery so many years ago when she had nearly died of dysentery. He remembered sitting in the palace garden as she trailed her fingers through the water of a pond. He heard her laugh, saw her quizzical look when he talked of his past, felt her small hands on his chest as she sat astride him, her eyes locked on his, her mouth open in excitement and joy.
He heard her voice, filled with love, filled with surprise and relief.
Opening his eyes he was surprised to see the dancing yellow light of torches. Without thinking he had pushed against the doorway and it had slid open.
Meryt’s hands were touching him now and she was saying his name over and over and over.
He crawled through the low doorway and pulled her to him.
As Bata pushed the door shut and began to paint over the hieroglyphs above it, Imhotep and Meryt held each other, whispering each other’s name between welcoming kisses.
2603 BCE
In the
Reign of King Huni,
the Smiter
at home
“Siptah found King Khaba,” Bata told Imhotep. “He’d tied a rope around a stone bench, wedged the bench against the wall beneath his bedroom window. Then he tied the rope around his neck and jumped.”
They were sitting on the roof terrace beneath a star-filled sky that was slowly growing pale as Re approached the eastern horizon. Meryt and Maya were asleep, finally surrendering to weariness after hours of celebration.
“His legs were smeared with shit,” Bata said.
Imhotep tried to not picture the image of the sullen king’s lifeless, dirtied body.
“What about Merneith?” he asked.
Bata shook his head, the movement softened by the growing light around them. “He was probably hanging there for a day or two,” Bata said quietly, not ready to move on. “Birds had started to peck at his face and there were white worms on his legs.”
He shifted against the low terrace wall and raised the clay pot of beer the men were sharing. He refilled his own cup and offered the pot to Imhotep who held his cup out to be replenished.
“Merneith,” Bata continued, “must have known what King Khaba was planning. Perhaps she helped him. Maybe she pushed him herself. I wouldn’t be surprised. The king’s bodyguards said that she left his chambers two days before he was found. As she left she instructed them to not disturb the king. She said he was fasting and communing with the gods.”
The men sipped at their drinks and Imhotep waited for Bata to continue his story, knowing that his old friend would have – or would
manufacture – details that no one else would know.
“They say that Merneith needed three slaves to carry the treasure she took with her.” He stopped suddenly. “Not Meryt and Maya,” he added quickly. “We went into hiding as you were leaving the Two Lands. It was arranged by Siptah.”
He twisted to look at Imhotep. “There is so much to tell you.”
Imhotep nodded.
Meryt and Maya were safe and healthy. Khaba was dead and Merneith was in hiding. Siptah, son of Imhotep’s old friend Sekhmire, was king now, calling himself King Huni, the Smiter.
He leaned against the wall, felt the rough stone scratch against his back and said, “I know, Bata. Meryt told me of your flight to Ta-Seti and how you protected them.”
Bata shook his head quickly. “No, we leaned on each other. Meryt is small but her ka is ferocious. And,” Bata added with a smile, “we did have an armed escort. It was truly Siptah who saved us.”
Leaning close to Imhotep, Bata said, “He feels guilty that he didn’t foresee the assassination of King Sekhemkhet and the murder of our Tjau. King Sekhemkhet was beloved by the soldiers, as was Khaba who was seen at his favorite. So after the assassination Siptah had to bide his time. An open revolt against King Khaba would have been futile.
“But he saved Meryt and Maya. Then he began to cement loyalty among the army. Meanwhile Khaba did nothing but indulge himself with Merneith. There were weeks on end when they never left his chambers. Her slaves brought them food and different sexual toys. There was a chair with leather wrist and ankle straps, and a mask, it looked like a hood with ... ” Bata stopped as Imhotep waved his hand.
“These things were left behind when Merneith fled,” Bata protested, “There were baskets full of ... ” Imhotep waved his hand again.
Bata leaned back against the wall. “It was the talk of the palace,” he said sulkily.
“I can imagine,” Imhotep said. He shook his head, his smile showing faintly as the darkness continued fleeing the rooftop.
“King Khaba is dead and disgraced. Merneith has disappeared and King Huni is on the throne. Meryt and Maya are safe and you have returned,” Bata summarized as if reading a shopping list. “Is that dry enough for your sensitive ears?” he asked.
Imhotep laughed and turning, he draped an arm around Bata’s shoulders. Leaning close he kissed the side of Bata’s head and hugged his friend.
“I’ve missed your salacious gossip, Bata” Imhotep said.
Then turning serious, he said, “I missed my family and friends and the land itself. But I was consoled, Bata, knowing that you were here to care for Meryt and Maya.”
He stopped talking as a soft cough sounded below them.
“It was wetter when we were in Ta-Seti,” Bata said softly as the coughing subsided. “There were weeks when she was unable to do much except rest. Then she would be better, able to cook and play with Maya. When Siptah’s soldiers arrived at the village and said it was safe to return to the Two Lands, she seemed to get better.
“As we traveled downriver she got stronger. But,” Bata added, “I thought sometimes that her face was glowing too much, as if, I’m sorry Lord Imhotep, but it sometimes looked as if her ka was straining to leave. But she was determined to see her home.
“Then when we returned to Ineb-Hedj and Nimaasted told us of the plan he and Paneb had made to send a message through time, she shook with joy.”
Beneath them Meryt coughed again and Imhotep rocked to his feet to go to her. Bata stood beside him and put a hand on Imhotep’s arm. “Her woman’s flow has stopped,” he said. “And sometimes when she coughs, there is blood.”
***
Lying on their bed, Meryt hid her hand behind her back as Imhotep entered their room, but her motion was slow.
Looking up she saw his eyes had followed the movement of her hand. He leaned close to her, reached around and picked up the wadded cloth she had tried to hide.
It was sticky with blood.
Bending down to her, he kissed her forehead, feeling the heat and tasting the sweat.
Before he had left the clinic in Helwan he had read everything he could about tuberculosis. Now, sitting beside Meryt, seeing her small form beneath the thin linen sheet, he was sure that she was infected with it.
“It passes,” she said.
He brushed a hand across her head and nodded.
“I have medicine,” he said.
Her eyes were suddenly wet with tears.
“I didn’t think I would see you again,” she said. “I thought of you in the tomb and even when Rudamon told me that you had been set free and returned to your time, I thought of all that you had been through, what you had seen and suffered. I thought of Tjau.”
He shook his head, “Don’t, Meryt.”
“No,” she said, her small shoulders shrugging beneath the thin fabric. “It was something we could share, our loss, our sorrow. Rudamon told me that you were sure that we would be reunited with Tjau.”
She raised a hand to caress his face.
“I know that you don’t share my beliefs, Tim,” she said, calling him by the name she had first learned for him, a name they reserved for playful teasing, a reminder of the gulf of time that they had crossed to find each other.
Fighting his own tears, Imhotep took her hand.
“I have medicine,” he repeated. “Akila, a doctor from my time, gave me medicine that can cure you. We will have many years together,” he promised, hoping that he was telling her the truth.
***
“There is heka in these ... these tiny things?” Meryt said the next morning after a breakfast of bread and dates.
Imhotep smiled and nodded. He held a cup of water in one hand. His other hand was open, palm up, four small pills lying in it.
“Yes. You’ll take these – swallow them – for sixty days, then only two of them for four more months.”
Meryt took the first pill and put it in her mouth. Taking the water cup, she swallowed.
“Akila, that is the doctor’s name?”
Imhotep nodded and looked at the remaining pills.
Meryt took and swallowed the next pill.
“And she is a great doctor, like my husband?”
“Better,” Imhotep said, “She actually has training.” He looked at the last two pills.
Meryt swallowed the third pill.
“And is this Akila beautiful?” she asked playfully.
Imhotep stared at the final pill. “All women in my time are beautiful,” he said sternly. “But none as beautiful as Meryt, mistress of my heart.”
“The great Lord Imhotep is as wise as ever,” Meryt said with a smile as she lifted the final pill from his hand. Swallowing the pill she raised her eyes and studied her husband’s face, wondering at the strength of his heart, what it must embrace to be able to live in two worlds at the same time.
***
Three weeks after Imhotep’s return, Meryt had grown weaker.
Although her coughing had diminished and her night fevers had disappeared, it was clear that her body was locked in an uncertain fight against the bacteria in her lungs. Her sleep remained restless and she continued to lose weight, her stomach rebelling against the modern medicine.
“I am so small,” she told Imhotep one morning. “Do I truly need to take these pills for two months?”
Akila had warned Tim to complete the treatment, otherwise the surviving bacteria would be immune from the drugs and further treatment would be less effective. Secretly Akila had worried about the long-term effect on the strength of twenty-first century antibiotics if the drugs were introduced into the genetic learning curve of bacteria five thousand years early. But she didn’t have the heart to refuse Tim’s effort to save Meryt.
“Yes,” Imhotep said. “We have to continue this for six months. Once your body gets used to it, you’ll be able to eat better and you’ll start feeling stronger.” Although he said the words with certainty, he wasn’t sure he believed himself.
Me
ryt took the pills, forcing herself to eat a piece of bread after she swallowed each one.
She looked up at Tim, a frown on her face. “Why did you not bring Akila here?”
“Why would I?” he said too quickly.
“You said she was a doctor. She was the one who gave you these pills.” She cocked her head and stared at him. “There is something more.”
Knowing that he was blushing, Imhotep said, “Akila is the one who healed Maya. Who will heal Maya. The false doorway that I passed through with Maya took us farther into the future than the doorway that Ahmes and I took. He and I arrived in the future before I had arrived with Maya and so Akila had to stay there so that when I arrive with Maya she will be there to heal her.”
Imhotep closed his eyes and reviewed what he had just said. He wasn’t sure that it made sense to him and he had lived it.
Meryt took his hand in hers.
“When you say my name, Imhotep, you are always gentle and loving, as if the sound comes from your heart and not your lips.” She raised herself on her toes and kissed his cheek quickly. “You say Akila’s name the same way.”
Out of reflex he started to protest. Then he stopped himself and sat on a bench, pulling Meryt onto the seat beside him.
He had never lied to Meryt. Her understanding and love were so open and accepting that he had never felt the need to hide anything. And his attraction to her, his love of her was so strong that he had never done anything to give him reason to lie.
She took his hands and, twisting to face him, she smiled. “You look so serious, Lord Imhotep,” she said with exaggerated formality.
Nodding, Imhotep tried to organize his thoughts. He knew that Meryt would not be angry with him, but he didn’t want to give her cause to lose spirit and hope.
She began to laugh, a girlish giggle, soft and shy.
“I am sorry, Imhotep, your face is so easy to read. And there are times,” she broke into another giggle. Shaking her head she said, “Your land must be very different from the Two Lands. Even after all these years here, your innermost heart is still that of an outlander.”